AI for the Public or Common Good

Speakers for this event

• Anna Michelle Asimakopoulou

  Anna Michelle Asimakopoulou

  Member of the European Parliament, EPP, Greece

  Anna Michelle Asimakopoulou has studied economics and law in the USA and in the UK and worked for several years as a lawyer in New York, specializing in financial transactions and international banking law. She worked as director of an NGO in Greece, focusing on ICT deployment and regional development. She also worked as an evaluator of projects funded by the European Commission and as a consultant in the private sector in Brussels and Luxembourg. She served as Deputy-Mayor of the City of Ioannina (2010-2012) and an elected member of the Hellenic Parliament (2012-2019). She was appointed Spokesperson of the New Democracy Party in 2013. She was Head of Fiscal Policy Sector (2015), Head of the Development and Competition Sector (2016) and Head of the Digital Policy, Telecommunications & Media Sector for New Democracy (2016-2019). She is currently a Member of the European Parliament and Vice Chair of the Committee on International Trade.

  Member of the European Parliament, EPP, Greece

• Brando Benifei

  Brando Benifei

  Member of the European Parliament

  Brando Benifei, European Federalist, is from La Spezia, Italy, and is the Head of Delegation of the Italian S&D MEPs. His main areas of work are Internal Market and Consumers Protection, Employment and Social Affairs, and Constitutional Affairs. He is rapporteur for the Single Market Program and shadow rapporteur for the European Social Fund Plus. He is active on youth policies, digitalisation and rights of persons with disabilities. In the previous term, he was responsible for the European Solidarity Corps, for the Post-Arab Spring in the MENA region and for key reports on the social inclusion and integration of refugees into the EU labour market, as well as youth employment policy such as the Youth Guarantee and the Youth Employment Initiative. He was also co-chair of the Youth Intergroup and vice-chair of the Disability Intergroup. In 2018, he received the MEP Award for his work on Employment and Social Affairs issues, for his work on youth unemployment. In 2016, Forbes included him in its annual 30 under-30 most influential in EU Politics list.

  Member of the European Parliament

• Carl Mörch

  Carl Mörch

  Co-manager AI Institute for Common Good, ULB-VUB

  Carl Mörch, M.Psy., Ph.D., is co-manager of the Brussels AI Institute for Common Good (ULB-VUB). He was in 2020-2021 a researcher at the Université de Montréal and Mila – Québec artificial Intelligence Institute (Algora Lab) in AI Ethics. He was awarded a fellowship by the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies (OBVIA) in 2020. He is also a lecturer and adjunct professor at UQÀM (Montréal, Canada). His is interested in the concrete application of high-level ethical principles into applied domains, and in the responsible development of technologies in society. He recently published the Canada Protocol (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0933365719312436), an ethical checklist for AI developers working on Mental Health.

  Co-manager AI Institute for Common Good, ULB-VUB

• Frederic Pivetta

  Frederic Pivetta

  Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Dalberg Data Insights

  Frédéric Pivetta is the Founder and Managing Partner at Dalberg Data Insights (DDI). Frederic is active over the last 8 years in the context of data for development where he has collaborated with major funders and local end-users and stakeholders. DDI is part of the Dalberg Group, which has offices in 25 countries. DDI focuses on developing data ecosystems aiming at social impact, Big Data approaches, tools, platforms and capacity building. Ultimately, the goal is to create economic value and social impact. For instance, DDI has developed a Big Data platform sourcing data from both the public and private sectors to help the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and many others on topics such as public health (Ebola, malaria, zika), gender gap, financial inclusion, agritech, poverty etc. Before that, Frédéric was a co-founder of Real Impact Analytics (now Riaktr), which develops Big Data tools for telecom operators. He founded the Data-for-Good entity from RIA. Frédéric is on the Board of Accountable (fintech) and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (Big Data for SDGs, as part of the UN). Frédéric has been working 8 years at McKinsey & Company, where he was senior Engagement Manager. Frederic holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and has graduated in Business Economics and in Econometrics from Brussels University (ULB and Solvay Business School).

  Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Dalberg Data Insights

• Hans De Canck

  Hans De Canck

  Manager - AI Experience Centre / AI for the Common Good

  Hans De Canck has a solid background in digital research and innovation management, working at universities and RTO’s (iMinds, imec, VITO). He manages and directs the development of the AI Experience Centre of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) as well as the Brussels AI for the Common Good initiative. The AI Experience Center is a state of the art Digital Innovation Hub and is host of the Belgian CLAIRE offices in Brussels. Several research centers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel have joined forces to develop a multi-disciplinary research and Innovation offering on AI, Data and Robotics towards Academia, Industry, Policy makers including the broader public. The AI Experience Centre accelerates this offering. Hans works with the research teams across the university and acts as coordinating manager for the AI for the Common Good initiative, launched by rector Caroline Pauwels in 2019.

  Manager - AI Experience Centre / AI for the Common Good

• Stefaan Verhulst

  Stefaan Verhulst

  Co-Founder, Chief of Research and Development, TheGovLab – NYU - New York

  Stefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer of the Governance Laboratory (The GovLab) at New York University (NYU) - an action research center focused on improving governance using advances in science and technology - including data and collective intelligence. He is also, among other positions and affiliation, the Editor-in-Chief of Data & Policy, an open access journal by Cambridge University Press; the research director of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance; Chair of the Data for Children Collaborative with Unicef; and a member of the High-Level Expert Group to the European Commission on Business-to-Government Data Sharing. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Yale University, Central European University and serves on numerous (advisory) boards, including Sparks and Honey, Center for Media, Data and Society, among others. He is also Founder and Curator in Chief of The Living Library. In 2018 he was recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential Academics in Digital Government globally (as part of the Top 100 in Digital Government) by the global policy platform Apolitical. At The GovLab, Stefaan Verhulst has developed and leads a range of impactful research initiatives that contribute to an enhanced understanding and improved practice of using data, science, and technology for decision and policymaking.

  Co-Founder, Chief of Research and Development, TheGovLab – NYU - New York

• Victor Negrescu

  Victor Negrescu

  Member of the European Parliament, S&D, Romania

  Victor Negrescu is the vice-chair of the Culture and Education Committee and rapporteur on the shaping of an European digital education policy. He is an emerging leader, active in the field of education, digital innovation, entrepreneurship, European financing, citizens' rights, and institutional affairs. His latest success was to promote in the European Parliament a resolution on education and to introduce in the Recovery and Resilience Facility a recommendation to Member States to allocate 10% for education and 2% for the culture and creative sector. Former Romanian Minister for EU Affairs in charge with the preparation of the EU Council Presidency, he was in the past a digital innovator and a professor before holding the position of MEP. Victor Negrescu is an active promoter of EU values, chairing the PES activists Romania and European Movement Romania organizations. He won in 2015 the MEP of the Year Award for the digital agenda and got recently an award from the Romanian digital industry for his efforts in promoting digital skills and education. As a civic activist, he managed to promote several European petitions calling for citizens and social rights at EU level. MEP Victor Negrescu is a strong advocate for a fair social Europe, based on common policies in the field of education, innovation & digital sector, protection of the environment, healthcare and infrastructure.

  Member of the European Parliament, S&D, Romania