Events

In honor of World Creativity and Innovation Day, celebrated annually on 21 April to raise the awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in human development, UNESCO has joined forces with UNEP, Oracle, and Hackmakers to host a global hackathon.  This hackathon will drive grassroot innovation to address some of the biggest challenges communities face in meeting the sustainable development goals. It will be held across more than 20 countries and encourage citizens, professional developers, and students to use their skills creatively to generate new ideas and solutions that will help build a better world.

The hackathon is dedicated to encouraging participants to use their skills creatively to generate new ideas and solutions around three of the key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 3) Health and Wellbeing, 4) Quality Education; and 8) Decent Work and Economic Growth. 

In the field of Artificial Intelligence, UNESCO plays a lead role at the international level as co-champion of recommendation 3C of the Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation dedicated to AI.  With the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, currently in development, UNESCO is further contributing to protect and promote human rights and human dignity in the entire AI lifecycle through policy recommendations and programmatic support. During the hackathon UNESCO will serve as a lead judge of the innovative solutions developed.

The virtual hackathon is open to students, working professionals, startups, freelance technologists, faculty, and IT services firms from across the world. During the hackathon, they will receive mentorship and advice from a variety of experts, as well as representatives from civil society and the private sector. The winners will be selected based on their video presentations, accompanying codebase. Solutions will be judged along the criteria of consistency, originality, social value, and quality/design.  

Already generating global interest, the hackathon is being supported by panellists, speakers, judges and mentors including: 

• Mohamend Al Banna, Senior Advisor to HH Sheikh Juma Bin Maktoum Al Maktoum, Government of UAE
• Vik Pant, Chief Scientist & Chief Science Advisor, Natural Resources, Canada
• Keith Strier, VP, Worldwide AI Initiatives, NVIDIA Corp
• Laetitia Caileteau, MD and Data & AI Lead, Accenture UK
• Kumar Parakala, President, GHD Digital
• Liz Forsyth, Global Infrastructure Lead, Infrastructure, Government & Healthcare, KPMG
• Anand Rao, Global & US AI and US Data & Analytics Lead, PWC
• David Jensen, Coordinator of the UNEP Digital Transformation Taskforce
• Ian Opperman, Chief Data Scientist, NSW Government
• Saeed Tasbihsazan, CTO, Telstra
• Sami Yalavac, CIO, BUPA ANZ
• Ayumi Aoki, Founder & CEO, Women in Tech
• Adrian Turner, CEO, Minderoo Wildfire & Disaster Resilience
• Chris Chelliah, SVP, Oracle
• Guillermo Ruiz, Global Head of Developer Relations, Oracle
• David Thodey, Chairperson, CSIRO
• Cherie Ryan, Vice President and Managing Director, ORACLE ANZ
• Sasha Rubel, Programme Specialist, UNESCO

More information on the hackathon and how to participate can be found here.

Useful Links :

• UNESCO Artificial intelligence
• AI for the planet
• AI and Ethics
• Decision Maker's Toolkit of AI
• AI and the Rule of Law
• Ethics of Science and Technology
• Science, Technology and Innovation
• To Be Smart, the Digital Revolution will need to be Inclusive (2021)

URL:

https://en.unesco.org/news/worldinnovationday-helping-incubate-data-driven-solutions-better-world