The Artificial Intelligence (AI) strand of our Stronger Together programme aims to develop specialised skills that will enable young leaders to design AI-based solutions responding to social and climate challenges.

Hence, the British Council is joining forces with Microsoft Hellas to develop a hackathon during which young people will explore and showcase the power of artificial intelligence for the common good.

AI is seen as a technology that has the power to solve some of the biggest global challenges facing us today. Young people have the power to influence the future of AI and whether it will be used as a tool for shaping solutions to real problems. It is a field in which they will be called to act critically, influence others and support wider society. It is crucial to channel our youth leadership work towards a field that will enable young people to be at the forefront of progress as actors of positive impact through social action.

We are running several activities as a part of our programme in 2022–23:

  • online focus groups in October 2022
  • face-to-face hackathons in Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Hungary at the end of November/early December 2022
  • online policy dialogue event in March 2023.

Focus Groups

The online focus groups aim to provide opportunities for dialogue on the use of AI for the common good, allowing for young people’s views to be shaped into recommendations. These recommendations will be presented in a final policy dialogue bringing youth together with high level representatives from academia, business and policy.

Our first online focus group took place on Friday 7 October 2022, 12.00–14.00 CET.

Hackathon

Join our hackathon, where young people with a background in artificial intelligence and social innovation will form teams and generate creative ideas to respond to current social needs and the challenges of the global climate crisis. The winning team will be awarded with a study visit to a relevant AI project/institution in the UK in February 2023.

The hackathon took place on Friday 9, Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 December 2022 at Serafio City of Athens.

Watch the video where our partners and the young participants describe their experience of the hackathon in Athens and the importance of using artificial intelligence for the common good.

Partners

The programme is powered by Microsoft Hellas and delivered in collaboration with DAEM – City of Athens IT Company, Athens Partnership and “Athena” Research Center, under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs.

The programme is hosted at Serafio City of Athens.

Online Policy Dialogue

In partnership with business, research and innovation partners, our Online Policy Dialogue ‘Stronger Together | Artificial Intelligence for the Common Good’ held on 7 March 2023 provided a platform for exchange between young leaders and national, European and international policy makers on the critical challenges and best practices in the field.

We were pleased to host Jack Watson, Head of AI Skills and Workforce, Office for AI, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology; Jim Dratwa, Ethics in Science and New Technologies, European Commission and Secretary-General of the EC International Dialogue on ethics and bioethics; Emine Yilmaz, Professor of Computer Science and Alan Turing Fellow, University College London and Amazon Science Scholar; and James Bridge, Secretary-General and Chief Executive UK National Commission for UNESCO.

The panel was moderated by Dr John Shawe-Taylor, UNESCO Chair in AI, IRCAI Director, Professor at University College London and Director of the Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML).

Watch a recording of the discussion