World AI Week will be the AI reunion of the year: Sarah Porter, CEO of InspiredMinds!

World AI Week, the annual gathering in Amsterdam celebrating the brightest minds in the field of artificial intelligence, is returning after a two year hiatus. World AI Week (WAIW) is being held from October 10 to October 14, 2022 and will see more than 15,000 people representing over 160 countries arrive in Amsterdam.

World AI Week is a platform developed by InspiredMinds! in partnership with the City of Amsterdam, Accenture, StartupAmsterdam, Smart Health Amsterdam, and Amsterdam Convention Bureau. The crowd-sourced programme acts as the only week dedicated to the global AI ecosystem on the planet. After the pandemic-induced hiatus, WAIW will be the “AI reunion of the year.”

This year, the World Summit AI (WSAI) is being held at Taets Art and Event Park in Zaandam (Amsterdam region), on October 12 and 13, in conjunction with World AI Week. With over 200 speakers and 12 tracks, the world’s largest AI summit will see enterprise, big tech, startups, investors, and scientists gather at one place to discuss AI innovation, ethics and AI4good. If you are an AI professional then Amsterdam is where you would want to be in October and you can even host a side event.

A COVID safe environment

While the immediate threat of COVID has subsided in the past two years, the organisers of World AI Week want it to be a COVID safe environment. “The preparation has been very exciting this year,” says Sarah Porter, CEO and Founder of InspiredMinds!.

David McMullen, Community & Commercial Director at InspiredMinds!, says, “In the UK, it’s business as usual and we hosted our intelligent health event at ExCeL in London recently. COVID definitely seems to be taking a backseat now, you know, people are very focused on moving forward with business as usual.”

With a community that includes a large portion of leading clinicians and scientists working on the frontline of the pandemic, the organisers of WAIW have access to critical information related to COVID-19. “We consult constantly with them to ensure we adhere to the latest covid advice and best practices. We’ve also been very fortunate to have already run two physical events during the pandemic, we have used a combination of pre entry testing, masks (albeit now not mandatory) and a high level of health and safety measures on-site,” she adds.

AI on my mind

Since the last edition of World AI Week, the European AI landscape has evolved a great deal with a number of AI startups and entrepreneurs looking to solve grass roots problems with the technology. The World AI Week this year will reflect this change including the fact that the Netherlands and Norway have now joined the European AI landscape to collectively drive AI innovation in Europe.

With the event being held in Amsterdam, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the capital city will be the epicentre of AI in Europe. “The European landscape is really coming into an exciting period with AI now maturing as a technology in practice, funding has tripled into European AI startups and we are also seeing the impact of laws and policies emerging both from a national strategy and international or coalition level,” Porter says.

Another big facet of this event will be the key role played by the Netherlands in Europe’s grand ambitions to adopt AI within its ecosystem. Porter says the Netherlands is leading the march with a lively investor network, booming startup ecosystem, the Netherlands AI Coalition (NLAIC), and the NL AI data science training programme.

However, AI is also at a stage where its use very much depends on that of its makers. The European Union is cognizant of this nature of AI and is creating legislation that will help the European AI ecosystem to build the technology within the ethical boundaries.

“The impact of laws on AI will be interesting this year,” says Porter. “Over 200 new laws and regulations surrounding AI were developed last year but the challenge is how to apply these without stifling innovation.”

Even with regulatory threats hanging on a number of AI developments, the investment into AI has skyrocketed in the past few years. Some of the brilliant minds in the field are launching new startups and introducing products with wider societal impact. “The balance of innovation partnered with regulation will be a super interesting feature of WAIW this year,” Porter explains.

World AI Week 2022: Top 8 AI trends to follow

At the World AI Week this year, visitors and attendees can expect to see over 40 cutting-edge business, science, tech, and networking gatherings aimed at showing how AI is truly transformative for both business and society. The focus will be automation, creativity, diversity, innovation, responsibility, and optimisation.

Peter Barden, Director of Content for World Summit AI at InspiredMinds!, says some of the biggest trends are around talent, deep medicine, the metaverse, cybersecurity, and our planet’s ecosystem. You can drive these key trends or host a side event during World AI Week by filling in this form. Here is a look at eight trends to follow at World AI Week:

• Talent, diversity, and great resignation: Barden says the great resignation has impacted the software and tech industry and the impact of talent drought, lack of diversity in hiring policy, and the great resignation are playing out in unique ways in the AI ecosystem. At WAIW, we will see companies address these issues with unique AI solutions that make HR not only efficient but also effective.
• Ecosystems: The ecosystem collapse and climate collapse at an unprecedented level is a problem that the world is acutely aware of. This year, the World AI Week will focus on bringing solutions for these problems as part of its AI for ecosystem and AI for climate track called ‘T-Minus30’.
• Medicine or intelligent health: AI in medicine or intelligent health will focus on prevention and solving world’s greatest healthcare problems. Porter says, “Central to the discussion has to be patients’ data and privacy, then human meaningful control around machine led decision making in a clinical setting.”
• Regulations: As mentioned earlier, the whole world is watching the kind of regulation that the EU will enact for the AI ecosystem. The laws, framework, and policies from the EU will also act as a guideline for policymakers in the US. At World AI Week, Barden says there will be a deep dive into how EU regulations will affect local industry, local government, local startups, and local innovation.
• Language AI: Language AI is essentially the frontier for natural language processing and conversational AI. There are a number of startups working on AI that masters language and World AI Week will focus on next-generation language AI making the leap from academic research to widespread adoption in the real world.
• Metaverse: There will be a dedicated track looking at the role of AI in the metaverse. Every major tech company has its own representation of metaverse and Barden says right now, metaverse is a vision and not a specific technology. At World AI Week, attendees can expect to see industry training around AI in the metaverse looking at real world applications.
• Cybersecurity: One of the big topics will be cybersecurity. With COVID, a number of companies have realised that the future of work is no longer going to be on premise. As a result, they are preparing for a cybersecurity practice that is autonomous and proactive security.
• Low code and no code AI: The low code and no code AI, Barden says, has enabled disenfranchised communities in the developing world. A Filipino organisation upskilling neglected, often abused, and forgotten single mothers and housewives, will speak at World AI Week about the impact of low code and no code AI.

World’s most sustainable tech summit

As Barden mentioned earlier, this year World AI Week is looking at the collapse of ecosystems and how AI can help but Porter acknowledges that climate remains a pressing theme once again. “We are particularly interested in energy and alternatives to fossil fuels, the future of food – an area where the Netherlands is demonstrating to the world how we can farm in micro space whilst increasing yield and protecting biodiversity. Of course in smart and healthy cities, infrastructure and the way society operates has to see a seismic shift as we move to a climate friendly world,” says Porter.

As an event bringing in people from around the world, sustainability remains an important focus for Sarah Porter and everyone at InspiredMinds!. In order to recognise the efforts of its community members travelling sustainably, it introduced Earth Points as a rewards programme.

The idea is to ensure that World AI Week and World Summit AI does not look like Davos where people in important positions speak about sustainability and then hop on their private jets. The goal is to recognise members who are proactively taking steps to reduce the carbon footprint of the summit.

“As community members register their contributions, be that travel by bike or foot or train, they accrue earth points that are transferable as cash discounts and deductions on cost for attending our summits,” says Porter. “It’s a work in progress and we are happy to hear from anyone on how to make this work, we would like to become the world’s most sustainable tech summit.”

South by Southwest for AI community

Barden explains the vision is for World AI Week, and the centrepiece event World Summit AI, to eventually mirror the scale and diversity of music festival, South by Southwest. He says they are working very hard to make this event a celebration of AI talent around the world and not just another tech conference.

“We like to work hard and we play hard,” Barden says. “We’ve got two years of pent up energy here and we’re very excited to see how that plays out in terms of developing partnerships.”

He further adds that Sarah’s vision for World Summit AI was not to make it a B2B event but to make it a “festival of ideas.” With a hiatus of two years, the World AI Week this year will be flowing with ideas from every walk of life. With DJs playing music and AI mixing the tracks, there will be a number of moments for those attending World AI Week and World Summit AI to not only digest all the announcements but also unwind themselves. To host a side event during World AI Week, you can register by filling in this form.