European Researchers organize the “European Vision for AI” e-event for the General Public about the Present and Future of Artificial Intelligence in Europe, Thursday 22 April 2021, 11:00-13:00 CEST

The European scientific community will share with the general public their actions towards moving European Artificial Intelligence (AI) forward, to future success in a growing competition environment with countries such as the US or China, in the “European Vision for AI'' event. The online discussions are scheduled for Thursday 22 April 2021, 11:00-13:00 CEST and organized by the https://www.vision4ai.eu/ VISION project partners in cooperation with four networks of AI centers of excellence (AI4Media https://www.ai4media.eu/ , ELISE https://www.elise-ai.eu/ , TAILOR https://tailor-network.eu/ , Humane-AI-Net https://www.humane-ai.eu/ ). These networks were launched within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Program in September 2020 and are bringing together scientists across Europe.

In the event, European citizens with an interest in AI will gain an overview of Europe's position in the field of AI and how this impacts Europe's economy and society. The "European approach to AI" that is currently being promoted brings together excellence and trust, with the goal of creating a world-leading ecosystem committed to the "AI for Good" and "AI for All" concepts. Since this event is coordinated with, and closely linked to, the official announcement on new regulations and further investment in AI, scheduled by the European Commission in this week, the event will represent one of the first opportunities for public discussion on these new plans at the European level.

Ms Dita Charanzová, Vice-President of the European Parliament, and Ms Lucilla Sioli, Director for Digital Industry within Directorate-General CONNECT at the European Commission, stand out prominently among the speakers together with other high-level experts and stakeholders.

Prof. Holger Hoos (Leiden University, Netherlands), coordinator of the VISION Project sees this event as a step towards closer communication of the European AI community with the general public: “We aim to get young people, researchers, innovators, companies, and policy makers, at least virtually, around one table and discuss ambitious European plans for AI as well as the emerging ecosystem of AI excellence.”

Prof. Ioannis Pitas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), Coordinator of the International AI Doctoral Academy (AIDA http://www.i-aida.org/ ) and event panelist on ‘Skills & Training’ believes that:

“AI education should be anthropocentric and tuned to form true thinkers and Knowledge Society citizens. A major education overhaul is needed, combining scientific basis and classical studies, to support AI excellence for an European AI brand.”

Starting at 11am CEST, the event will be fully online, streamed at http://event.vision4ai.eu event.vision4ai.eu for free and with no prior registration. The program will be conducted in English. The public will be able to enter discussions via chat. Participants will also get the opportunity to choose from three parallel sessions focusing on society, industry and skills & training, depending on their particular interests.

About the organizers

This event is organized by the consortium of partners of the project VISION (www.vision4ai.eu http://www.vision4ai.eu ), the coordination and support action (CSA) awarded under the https://cordis.europa.eu/programme/id/H2020_ICT-48-2020 H2020-ICT-48-2020 call. The aim of VISION is to reinforce, interconnect and mobilize Europe’s AI community. Europe has been investing in the European model of AI, with a new set of four https://www.vision4ai.eu/community/ European networks of AI excellence centres. Launched in September 2020, these four networks of excellence centers - AI4Media, ELISE, HumanE-AI-Net and TAILOR - are now working on various aspects of trustworthy, human-centric AI. In parallel to these efforts, the VISION project aims to create connections, synergy and joint initiatives between these networks as well as with key stakeholders across Europe. These projects are key components in the European Commission's AI strategy.

Prof. Holger Hoos (Leiden University, Netherlands), coordinator of the VISION Project

Prof. Ioannis Pitas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), Coordinator of the International AI Doctoral Academy (AIDA http://www.i-aida.org/ )