Day: May 23, 2021

DUBAI, The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution UAE (C4IR UAE), managed by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), has named LuxAI winner of its Smart Toys Competition, which aims to solve learning and societal integration challenges faced by children of determination.

The Luxemburg-based company captured the jury’s attention with its QTrobot, an expressive humanoid social robot for children with special needs and autism.

The winner is to receive support from DFF and Abu Dhabi’s Early Childhood Authority (ECA) in developing their toy concepts and prototypes, and piloting them with relevant UAE-based entities.

Launched earlier in 2021 in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF), ECA and the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence, the competition invites local and global SMEs that design smart toys powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to compete across four categories; namely Health and Nutrition, Family Support, Child Protection, and Early Care and Education.

The top three winners, which include SmartLife Robotics and Amaisys Technologies S.L.U., were chosen out of 30 applicants globally by an international panel of expert judges, comprising representatives of WEF, the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence, ECA, Dubai Future Accelerators and C4IR UAE.

On this occasion, Professor Klaus Schwab, WEF Founder and Executive Chairman, said, “AI-powered toys have tremendous potential benefits for children’s learning, play, and growth; the World Economic Forum, launched the Generation AI project that focuses on responsible and innovative AI for children and youth. We believe that smart toys should be designed ethically and responsibly to protect, educate, and empower children.

“With the rapid pace of technological change around the world, even toys are quickly changing. Artificial intelligence is transforming the world and also transforming children’s toys and childhood itself.”

Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of DFF, emphasised the role of the Smart Toy Competition to encourage innovation in AI, which will enhance efforts to design solutions that empower, engage children of determination and help them reach their developmental goals.

Belhoul said, “The competition provides an ideal platform for building synergies with innovators and creators, especially AI solution developers, with the aim of designing the future, promoting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, facilitating knowledge transfer and leveraging future tools to develop effective solutions to the challenges facing vital sectors, such as education, health and community inclusion.”

For her part, ECA Director-General Sana Mohamed Suhail praised the noteworthy efforts of DFF and the UAE Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution to identify and empower companies working on enhancing children’s wellbeing, specifically children of determination.

She also touched on the importance of promoting collaborations with unique interventions working at the intersection of early childhood development and safe technology, noting that these efforts can enhance access to innovative tools and practices, enriching the developmental journeys for the children of Abu Dhabi and transforming people’s way of thinking to the needs of young children and address them.

The Polish start-up; SmartLife Robotics, specialises in building AI-powered robots and toys that boost children’s cognitive development, presented KODI 2.0, a robotic teacher’s assistant that could perform various tasks autonomously and teach children in a home environment.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, Executive Certificate for Risk-Based Supervision Professionals was awarded to 25 UAE nationals in a ceremony attended by Khaled Mohamed Balama, Governor of the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) and Mary O’Dea, Chief Executive of Irish Banking Institute (IOB) on 20 May 2021.

In January 2020, the CBUAE launched an in-house Risk-Based Supervision Professionals Programme, in line with its strategic objectives to become one of the top central banks globally.

The programme is designed to enhance the skills of CBUAE supervisors who examine licensed financial institutions.

The programme has been developed in cooperation with and accredited by the Institute of Banking (IOB), a recognised college of the University College Dublin and a leading institute in training bankers and bank supervisors.

The programme provides the necessary knowledge for examiners to practice their responsibilities. It covers financial and market conduct risks, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing.

The programme is delivered by CBUAE’s specialised senior staff members and faculty members of the IOB, providing a unique mix of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, increasing the effectiveness of supervision, and contributing towards a better understanding of the risks facing banks and other financial institutions in the UAE.

Khaled Mohamed Balama, Governor of CBUAE, said: “As we aim for excellence in all our areas of business, this investment by the CBUAE in Emirati talent strengthens our banking supervisory capacity and contributes to the Emiratisation agenda of the UAE. This particular programme is tailor-made for the CBUAE, and has further equipped our examiners with the necessary knowledge and skills to apply the best supervisory practices to the assessment of broad variety of risks. This initiative will contribute to our capacity to promote financial stability in the UAE.”

Source: Emirates News Agency