ITU AI for Good

AI for Good is an ongoing webinar series organized by the Standardization Bureau (ITU-T) of the International Telecommunication Union, where AI innovators and problem owners learn, discuss and connect to identify AI solutions to advance the Sustainable Development Goals. The impetus for organizing global summits that are action oriented, came from existing discourse in artificial intelligence (AI) research being dominated by research streams such as the Netflix Prize (improve the movie recommendation algorithm).

AI for Good aims to bring forward Artificial Intelligence research topics that contribute towards more global problems, in particular through the Sustainable Development Goals.

AI for Good came out of the AI for Good Global Summit 2020 which had been moved online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. AI for Good is organized by the Standardization Sector of the ITU (ITU-T). Since moving online, AI for Good developed into three main program streams: Learn, Build, and Connect. AI for Good also helps organize ITU's Global Standards Symposium.

2023
The 2023 events received some publicity due to the large gathering of humanoid robots that occurred, including Ai-Da, Nadine Social Robot, Geminoid, and Sophia.

Neural Network
In 2020 the Global Summit became an online-only event. In 2022, the summit moved to the "Neural Network" community platform. Speakers include:

Global Summit 2019
The third AI for Good Global Summit took place from 28 May to 31 May, and gave rise to the ITU Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous and Assisted Driving with several Day 0 workshops and VIP events having taken place on May 27. Some of the speakers included:

Global Summit 2018
The second AI for Good Global Summit took place from 15 to 17 May 2018 at the ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and generated 35 AI project proposals  Speakers included:

Global Summit 2017


The first AI for Good Global summit took place from 7 to 9 June 2017. Speakers at the event included:

One of the outcomes of the 2017 Global Summit was the creation of an ITU-T Focus Group on Machine Learning for 5G.

Machine Learning 5G
The ITU-T Focus Group on Machine Learning for 5G Networks (FG-ML5G) was created following discussions at the 2017 AI for Good Global Summit. The FG-ML5G is produced several technology standards in this domain, including Y.3172, Y.3173, Y.3176, which were adopted by ITU-T Study Group 13. The FG-ML5G created the impetus for a new ITU-T Focus Group on Autonomous Networks, which is responsible for i.a. Y.3181.

AI for Health
The 2018 Global Summit led to the creation of the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health with the World Health Organization, which created the AI for Health Framework.

Trustworthy AI
Together with ITU-T Study Group 16 and 17, AI for Good has been developing technology specifications under Trustworthy AI. Including items on homomorphic encryption, secure multi-party computation, and federated learning.

ITU Journal "ICT Discoveries"
The ITU relaunched its Journal ICT Discoveries during the 2018 Global Summit, with the first edition being a special on Artificial Intelligence.