The island of Gran Canaria has once again become, thanks to the support of the Island Government, the venue for the DeepLearn 2022 Summer international congress, one of the most important events on artificial intelligence (AI) in the world, which celebrates its sixth edition at the Gran Canaria Congress Centre of Infecar, from this Monday until next Friday, 29 July.
The president of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Antonio Morales, was in charge of inaugurating this scientific meeting, in which around 500 students, researchers and professionals from all over the world will take part and which will address the advances and challenges of this branch of artificial intelligence, which covers research and innovations that provide more efficient algorithms for dealing with large-scale data in neuroscience, computer vision, voice recognition, language processing and drug discovery.
Antonio Morales, who was accompanied by the Rector of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Lluís Serra, and by the event organiser, Carlos Martín, highlighted the importance that the island government attaches to artificial intelligence, considering it “a transformative set of technologies, with the power to drive growth and prosperity, especially on an island of our characteristics”, he said. He assured that the Corporation develops training programmes related to this subject through the Society for Economic Promotion of Gran Canaria, “and I can assure you that this type of initiative is not very common in our local governments”, he added.
In fact, the island president said that events like this “show how Gran Canaria is leading the way in the development of this type of technology in the Canary Islands with an initiative like Smart Gran Canaria, which has allowed us to develop projects for public transport, fire prevention and management and the management of our water resources,” he said. He also recalled that the Tourism Intelligence Platform has just been presented, “with which we hope to improve our governance and also the strategies of our companies” and that the Cabildo has also launched a project for a ‘big data’ platform and another for the sensorisation of one of the island’s motorways.
In his speech, Morales referred to the Island Government’s interest in artificial intelligence “to help us tackle the major challenges we face worldwide, such as climate change or potential new pandemics,” he said, as well as attributing to these technologies an important role in social innovation, as they make it possible to implement effective policies with the most vulnerable groups.
In this respect, he added that, in his opinion, this discipline, which combines artificial intelligence and neuroscience, should be an effective instrument for improving public policies in the 21st century. “We need to ensure that data and AI can be used for the benefit of society, while ensuring that data systems reflect the needs of all members of society,” he remarked.
Finally, he reaffirmed the Cabildo de Gran Canaria’s willingness to work with institutions around the world to push the boundaries of research into emerging technologies. “This island government will always encourage scientific innovation in Gran Canaria, but we are equally determined to facilitate close collaboration with international partners, to improve our public policies,” he concluded.
