Placed under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, this three-day international conclave is initiated by the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) through its International Center for Artificial Intelligence of Morocco “AI Movement”, in partnership with UNESCO, and is attended by representatives from more than 30 countries, including around fifteen African countries, with the aim of laying the foundations for an African strategy dedicated to AI.
Speaking on this occasion, the Minister of National Education, Preschool and Sports, Chakib Benmoussa, indicated that AI is revolutionizing many sectors with very rapid advances, stressing that the African continent cannot remain a spectator of these developments.
The minister also highlighted the place of AI in the education sector, stressing that the emergence of this innovation has a strong impact on the reforms undertaken in education, particularly through its possible uses in terms of mastering fundamental knowledge, facilitating the work of the teacher in the classroom and personalized tutoring solutions for students.
Thus, AI can, according to him, help in the acquisition of new learning including languages through conversational tools based on AI, with considerable opportunities in several areas, in a useful complementarity and not a replacement of teaching, through a deployment conditioned by convincing experiments.
For his part, the ambassador, director general of the Moroccan Agency for International Cooperation (AMCI), Mohamed Methqal, highlighted the Kingdom’s commitment and its leadership in the development of AI by acting, through the AI Movement center of UM6P, for the promotion of innovative research capable of addressing the issues facing the African continent.
However, Mr. Methqal, who is also President of the Francophone Network of South-South Actors and Tripartite Cooperation, noted the predominance of only two languages in the development of AI (English, Mandarin), while advocating for the promotion of African languages in this field, capable of serving the complementarity between the different initiatives for a common, integrated and non-fragmented action in the service of the development of Africa.
For his part, the President of UM6P, Hicham El Habti, indicated that AI is an indispensable element in the development and promotion of several areas, including health and education, in order to meet the needs of communities.
Likewise, he called for leadership from Morocco and Africa in AI, with a view to promoting its use in the service of sustainable and democratic development.
UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Tawfik Jelassi, for his part, welcomed the significant impact of the development of AI in Morocco and Africa, while expressing confidence in the transformative potential of AI for Africa.
UNESCO is committed to supporting the development and use of AI in Africa, he noted, stressing the need for disruptive innovation and a new paradigm in learning and education and a crucial need to secure private data and the use of cyberspace.
This opening ceremony was marked by the signing of a partnership agreement formalizing the launch in Rabat, under the aegis of UNESCO, of the AI Movement, the first category II AI Center in Africa.
This agreement was initialed by the Executive President of the International Center for Artificial Intelligence of Morocco, “Ai movement” under the UM6P, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, the Minister of National Education, Preschool and Sports, Chakib Benmoussa and the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Communication and Information, Tawfik Jelassi.
“AI Movement” is a research and development center created in March 2021 by UM6P, with the ambition of being a regional AI hub on the African continent.
In this line, it was designated a UNESCO category II center in November 2023 and, consequently, recognized as a center of excellence in the field of AI and data sciences on the African continent.
2024-09-17 09:08:26