Norway, Diversity & AI — Could the AI Billion Be Even More Inclusive?
Should there be only white people in the advisory board helping to decide how the one billion NOK for AI in Norway will be structured?
This is an article about the recently announced Advisory Expert Group in Norway. It follows developments after an article I wrote previously about how the Research Council of Norway is working to include the AI community in shaping the AI billion (funds dedicated to AI research over the next five years). I was then promptly reminded that there were only white people on the Advisory Expert Group, and asked whether that was inclusive? Who have we forgotten or could be included?
Norway begins an inclusive process — continued
After writing about the Norwegian AI billion yesterday and how inclusive the process was I started getting messages.
I do have to commend the Research Council of Norway (RCN) on including a good distribution of women in the advisory board and leading the board. However, there were aspects I missed or had forgotten…
Messages from one anonymous source pointed out what I did not immediately see in the board:
“The AI Advisory Expert Group for RCN does not have any person of colour / miniority, what do you think about it?
To me it is mostly white Caucasian, so I don’t think it’s inclusive. I just noticed you wrote on LinkedIn about inclusive approach. Often in most meetings there is not a single person of colour.”
This is a call for adding a member or members to the Advisory Expert Group. As it was just announced, is it not possible to add members to the Advisory Expert Group? It may or may not be possible. I am not sure, but this should be handled or discussed.
It feels particularly embarrassing that I did not spot this myself, just the day before the launch of the new book by Joy Buolamwini (31st of October) about widespread discrimination and lack of inclusion or equity in the field of AI….
A list of excellent people in the field of AI in Norway to consider — that are not white
Here is a list of people on the top of my head. Not in alphabetical order or priority.
Ishita Barua — Chief Medical Officer LIVV Health
Chief Medical Officer, LIVV Health, PhD AI in Medicine, Fulbright Scholar, Harvard Medical School, Norway’s Top 50 Women in Technology, author of a book about AI in medicine. Need I say more?
Seifedine Kadry — Full Professor of Data Science at Noroff
Full Professor of Data Science at Noroff. Professor Seifedine Kadry has a Bachelor degree in 1999 from Lebanese University, MS degree in 2002 from Reims University (France) and EPFL (Lausanne), PhD in 2007 from Blaise Pascal University (France), HDR degree in 2017 from Rouen University. At present his research focuses on Data Science, education using technology, system prognostics, stochastic systems, and applied mathematics. He is an ABET program evaluator for computing, and ABET program evaluator for Engineering Tech. He is a Fellow of IET, Fellow of IETE, and Fellow of IACSIT. He is a distinguish speaker of IEEE Computer Society.
Currently more than 14038 citations.
Abbey Lin — co-founder of Fortifai
As a co-founder of Fortifai (an AI startup), she has leveraged 20+ years of international experience in ESG, risk, and compliance to address a specific market need. Fortifai is on a mission to demystify ESG regulatory compliance and provide expert, scalable implementation advice through technology.
She has shaped and driven global ESG strategies from the ground up for two global stock-listed companies. Reporting to the board, she understands the importance of delivering data-driven insights. She is passionate about democratizing ESG implementation and making it accessible and affordable for companies of all sizes.
She also has a deep interest in technology and AI. She co-founded Oslo.AI in 2019 and Ethical AI resources in 2018 (transferred to NORA.AI in 2023). She serves as a board member of Visualyst, an AI-video compliance solution.
Professor Linga Reddy Cenkeramaddi
His main research activities include foundational and applied research to solve cutting edge problems in the research areas of Cyber-Physical systems, Autonomous systems, Robotics and Automation involving advanced sensor systems, Computer vision, Thermal imaging, LiDAR imaging, Radar imaging, wireless sensor networks, smart electronic systems, advanced machine learning techniques, connected autonomous systems including drones/unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned underwater systems (UUSs), 5G- (and beyond) enabled autonomous vehicles, and Socio-Technical Systems like urban transportation systems, Smart Agriculture and Smart Cities.
Ibrahim A. Hameed
From Sep. 2018 to present Ibrahim Hameed works as a Professor at the Dept. of ICT and Natural Sciences at NTNU in Ålesund. His main research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Control Engineering, Field Robotics, Social Robots, and optimization. He is an author/coauthor of more than 75 publications in international journals, conferences and book chapters and a reviewer for a number of international journals and conferences.
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This is also part of my personal project #1000daysofAI and you are reading article 517. I am writing one new article about or related to artificial intelligence for 1000 days. The first 500 days I wrote an article every day, and now from 500 to 1000 I write at a different pace. Adagio?
