The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has delivered a speech at a ministerial panel discussion on “The OECD AI Principles – impact on the global policy landscape,” as part of the Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), held in Gran Canaria, Spain, under the theme “Driving long-term recovery and economic growth by building a trusted, sustainable, and inclusive digital future.”
Ministers and government officials from 20 countries participated in the event.
During his speech, the ICT Minister underlined Egypt’s keenness to cooperate with the international community in implementing the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. The state collaborates with OECD and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and chairs the Arab Working Group and African Working Group on AI to transfer the Egyptian experience and develop regional visions regarding AI policies.
The ICT Minister stated that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) focuses on the national priorities in implementing AI projects.
In his remarks, Talaat reviewed the Egyptian experience in AI. He highlighted the efforts made to implement the National AI Strategy, in coordination with concerned authorities through the National AI Council chaired by MCIT. He pointed out that the national efforts to develop the strategy were exerted by all stakeholders, including civil society and government agencies.
The ICT Minister presented the most prominent projects implemented by the Applied Innovation Center (AIC) to implement state-of-the-art ICT technologies in finding solutions to the challenges faced by Egyptian society in several vital areas, such as health care, agriculture, and Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP) – the Egyptian dialect. Furthermore, projects to use AI in supporting decision-making are implemented in urban planning, groundwater management, macroeconomics, and others.
The ICT Minister emphasized the significance of digital capacity-building to prepare a talent pool in AI.
Talaat added that Egypt joined the OECD recommendation on AI principles and translated a copy of the recommendation into Arabic to promote the regional dimension.
Talaat revealed that Egypt is currently cooperating with OECD teams in the second phase to develop the AI strategy through Egypt-OECD Country Programme. He stressed the significance of establishing technological and scientific partnerships with OECD members to develop AI applications in different fields.
The session was attended by the Slovenian Minister of Digital Transformation Emilija Stojmenova Duh, the Director for AI and Digital Industry at the European Commission Lucilla Sioli, Vice President for Global Public Policy at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Michael Punke, the CEO at Partnership on AI Rebecca Finlay, and President of Patrick J. McGovern Foundation Vilas Dhar. The session was moderated by Deputy-Director General, OECD Working Party on AI Governance (AIGO), the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Marco-Alexander Breit.
The ICT Minister attended a dinner party held by King Felipe VI of Spain on the occasion of opening the OECD Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting. King Felipe VI of Spain invited the ministers participating in the Meeting to the dinner party.
It is worth noting that OECD plays a significant role in the ICT sector by preparing studies and research that help governments compare different experiences and find solutions to common challenges. This is in addition to its role in coordinating national and international policies of countries and identifying good practices.
MCIT presented two projects within the OECD Country Programme, including an AI-related project.
