Imperial DSI hosts African delegation to encourage global effort on AI policy

In collaboration with Data for Policy CIC, the Data Science Institute hosted experts to discuss data and AI in Sub-Saharan Africa's public sector.

The pre-conference meeting was held on 8 July, ahead of the Data for Policy Conference 2024, at Imperial’s Data Science Institute.

The meeting consisted of a strategic working group that represented the third in a series, organised by Data for Policy CIC and generously supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This follows an inaugural event in Nairobi (March 2023) and a second event convening in Accra (October 2023).

This session continued the group’s mission to examine SSA's role in the global data, policy sphere.

Dr Zeynep Engin, Chair and Director of Data for Policy CIC, highlighted the goal of their proactive SSA engagement program: to foster bi-directional knowledge exchange between regional experts and the international community at the intersection of Data/AI and Policy/Governance, also offering targeted support to key regional stakeholders.

"We had productive discussions on how to successfully engage with African colleagues on data and AI for policy. What if we host the next Data for Policy Conference in Africa?” Dr Rossella Arcucci Director of Research at the Data Science Institute

According to the Data for Policy group: “Our objective is to develop actionable proposals that prioritize, reflect, and address the goals, strategies, needs, and contexts of SSA stakeholders along the AI and data science “research to policy pipeline”.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all participants for their contributions to these highly productive meetings.”

DSI Director of Research Dr Rossella Arcucci spoke about the meeting saying: “It was a pleasure to host this pre-conference meeting at the Data Science Institute. We had productive discussions on how to successfully engage with African colleagues on data and AI for policy.” She proposed: “What if we host the next Data for Policy Conference in Africa?”

Photography by Data for Policy CIC.