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News — 28 February, 2025

The Paris Chronicles: Attending the AI Action Summit to present our AI-assisted mapping service

In the context of a big, international event such as this year’s AI Action Summit organized by the Paris Peace Forum, HOT’s Petya Kangalova, Tech Partnership and Engagement Lead, and Omran Najjar, Senior Technical Product Owner- AI, reflect on their attendance and the importance of keeping AI developments close to the humans they intend to serve.

Cover photo: Petya presents fAIr in the AI Action Summit main stage, as one of 10 projects selected to pitch their AI solution to the event’s attendees. Source: Omran Najjar.

On the 10th and 11th of February, we were honored to participate in this year’s Artificial Intelligence Action Summit. At HOT, we focus on locally led open solutions, including fAIr, an AI-assisted mapping service to support disaster response, so it was important for us to apply to the summit and bring such solutions to more high-level events.

Getting Ready - Warming Up for the AI Action Summit

But what is this event for those who are not familiar with it? The AI Action Summit, chaired by France and India and coordinated by the Paris Peace Forum, aims to “forward equitable and inclusive AI policies that address pressing challenges such as inequality, misinformation, and the digital divide, particularly in underserved regions of the world.” This year, the focus was on addressing the potential to develop more AI technologies while making sure no one is left behind and that society benefits from these efforts. Among the different activities organized within the Summit, this year they included a showcase of 50 AI projects called “AI for Good,” highlighting diverse initiatives that center on ethics and the improvement of people’s lives through AI.

We thought fAIr was a great fit to be presented in this context, but even so, we were amazed to learn that not only had we been selected as one of the 50 AI for Good projects out of 770 submissions, but also that we were also one of the 10 projects selected to pitch our solution on stage during the AI Action Summit. We were excited to go to Paris and be part of such a high-level forum!

(Mid)journey to Paris

Even before the actual event, we started diving into the world of AI for good through its side activities. On February 4th and 5th, we attended the GeoAI Hack hackathon. In this 2-day event, teams composed of AI enthusiasts had to combine satellite imagery, AI tools, and creativity to develop an “operational early warning system for desert locust monitoring and control.” Omowonuola Akintola and Kshitij Raj Sharma (HOT staff members), alongside Ayomide Oraegbu and Emmanuel Jolaiya (OpenStreetMap community members), participated as the “GeoTechAI” team, with the creation of a prediction model and an accompanying web application called “LocustFinder.” Competing against 24 other teams, GeoTechAI won second place, showcasing how the combination of geospatial resources with AI technology can address pressing environmental challenges.

On February 9th, we also had the opportunity to break the ice and connect with other Summit attendees from all around the world. We heard really inspiring stories, from people applying AI to reduce homelessness in London to championing the rights of data supply chain workers and exposing the often-invisible labor behind AI in Kenya. Even while addressing different challenges, we realized that all of us are passionate about the AI solutions we are working on.

PXL_20250205_175040944.jpg (From left to right) Omran, Ayomide, Omowonuola, Kshitij, and Emmanuel pose as the team received the award for winning second place at the GeoAI Hack hackathon. Source: Omran Najjar.

And Now, the Main Event

On the morning of the 10th, we were guided to the Grand Palais in Paris for the official start of the AI Action Summit. For people like us who are more accustomed to attending tech-focused events, being in such a stunning venue surrounded by high security and lots of media was, in a way, a completely new experience. The 50 AI for Good projects had designated booths called action stations, aimed at showcasing our AI solutions. Interestingly, there were not many focused on geospatial AI solutions (though we loved being in a “geo corner” with our —now— friends, InstaDeep and UN Global Pulse). We really enjoyed being in a space where we could closely interact with people, allowing them to try out our technology. Speaking about a tool is not the same as people trying it themselves and hearing their reactions. So, what were their reactions?

As people walked to the booth, we could see the excitement - a big highlight was seeing the smiles as people were approaching our booth Even if they were not familiar with OpenStreetMap and the work that we do, we saw them coming to the realization that open geospatial data is crucial for disaster response and anticipatory climate action. They either wanted to learn more or tell us how they were already using the data. We had people from India to Togo, Senegal, Cameroon, Japan, the UK, Australia, and many others come to talk to us. The beauty of working with geospatial data is that we were able to show them how fAIr can address the gap in map data in the locations where they live. Often, their amazement came from using fAIr and understanding that anyone can log in and create their own model in the places where they live, adding their local knowledge and sharing their feedback to train the models locally.

“Technology development, in particular AI solutions, should be done by including the end users to have a substaînable solution as far as helping communities to improve their living conditions is concerned.” - Mouhamadou Lamine Ba, Associate Professor of Big Data at the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique de l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD).

PXL_20250210_090838321.jpg Petya and Omran showcasing fAIr at their booth during the AI Action Summit. Source: Omran Najjar.

A fAIr Experience

The AI Action Summit had huge coverage in the news, with high-level decision-makers, like presidents and senior politicians, attending. Although this shows how AI for good is gaining more and more prominence within those sectors of society, being present at our booth for two days alongside the other project leads kept us quite grounded and connected to the core of what AI solutions are for: the people. AI Action Summit’s vision is for inclusive and sustainable AI. A key component of this vision is promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides and ensuring AI is open, which is at the core of what we do at HOT. Those two days at the booth reminded us why keeping “humans in the loop” and building AI solutions with the people that they will serve is what leads our work in AI.

“I particularly appreciated the approach that integrates humans into the annotation process as feedback. After all, who is suited to understand and recognize a local environment than the people who live there? AI should serve society, be created by it, and for it. This is truly fAIr AI.” Junior Adenyo, Project & Research Manager at CoTIA - Communauté Togolaise d’Intelligence Artificielle

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