Why AI4SDGs Cooperation Network

The United Nations' (UN) SDGs are set to solve development issues in economic, social and environmental dimensions, and realize sustainable development by 2030. The SDGs call for action by "all countries - poor, rich and middle-income - to promote prosperity while protecting the planet." The SDGs specify that the countries shall commit to eradicating poverty, pursuing good health and well-being, ensuring quality education, achieving gender equality, ensuring clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, ensuring access to affordable and clean energy, fostering innovation and building infrastructure, reducing inequalities, developing sustainable cities and communities, combating climate change and protecting the environment, and more. In all these fields, AI has a great role to play.

In the UN Secretary General’s Digital Cooperation Roadmap, it stated that: “additional understanding of how artificial intelligence can best be deployed to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals would be beneficial. The Artificial Intelligence for Good Global Summit, convened annually by ITU in partnership with other United Nations entities, is aimed at filling this gap. However, without a broader, more systematic attempt to harness the potential and mitigate the risk of artificial intelligence, opportunities to use it for the public good are being missed.”

With these two perspectives as a background, The AI4SDGs Cooperation Network is aimed at advancing UN Sustainable Development Goals and Digital Cooperation through AI Innovation and Partner Networks with AI related institutions, universities, AI industries etc. all over the world. It will collectively promote the realization of SDGs through AI, advancing the development of the 17 areas of SDGs with beneficial use of AI, and avoid the negative impacts. The AI4SDGs Cooperation Network will especially support the underdeveloped countries and regions, and promote the realization of leaving no one behind.

Major objectives of the AI4SDGs Cooperation Network include, but not limited to:

• Sharing technology and policy research on AI4SDGs
• Building open source AI4SDGs Infrastructures
• Cross organization working groups on AI4SDGs
• Evaluating positive and negative use of AI in SDGs related scenarios and applications
• Ethics and Governance of AI for SDGs
• Joint workshops, AI4SDGs annual reports
• Promotion on the use of AI4SDGs Infrastructures, applications for underdeveloped regions and countries, leaving no one behind.

Join the AI4SDGs Cooperation Network

Any research organizations and AI related companies are welcome to join in different ways, including partner organizations, individual members, project sponsors, user networks, etc. We do not require any financial support to join the cooperation network. We are looking forward to deep collaborations through AI4SDGs Cooperation Network, to make the collective efforts to realize UN SDGs and digital cooperation through responsible and beneficial research, development, and use of Artificial Intelligence across the globe.