19th Internet Governance Forum wraps up in Riyadh, after discussions on digital innovation and AI

The 19th Internet Governance Forum, organised by the United Nations and held in Riyadh, has wrapped up. The event featured experts, stakeholders and officials from some 160 countries.

Topics on the agenda included artificial intelligence and digital innovation.

Some experts are aiming to make AI more representative and inclusive; among them is professor Vukosi Marivate.

''For many parts of the world, AI systems don't really represent those people because of the systems not being built by those populations or communities, data not being available. And then also a challenge with access to compute now. So you need to have like very big computer systems to actually train these systems,'' Marivate says.

Marivate has insisted on the importance of creating AI systems with African languages.

''We want people to be able to really be themselves, use their own language. Why? Think about maybe an end to end system where we're thinking in something like health care, you have a patient and then you have a health worker and they're speaking. So you might have a way to describe what is ailing you in your language. And it's natural for you to speak in that way. But now if you then have to switch to like a dominant language like English or French or whatever, you're then doing a translation or maybe even two levels of translation,'' he explains.

By hosting the event, Riyadh underlined Saudi Arabia’s willingness to assert itself as a global leader in digital innovation.