COMSTECH-ICYF Essay Competition on Artificial Intelligence

i:  Introduction to the Competition:

Objective: To promote the awareness of AI as a leading technology of the contemporary era and its potential in varied areas of economy and society. To further identify outstanding talent in OIC countries that has both deeper understanding as well as innovative ideas on how AI can be used to address the multitude of problems being confronted by OIC countries as well as the potential pitfalls, challenges and the rules, regulations and guidelines, both legal and moral, that need to be considered to make the use of AI compatible with concerns of human privacy and dignity.

ii:  Rules and procedures:

1. Essay Competition shall be open to participants from OIC countries.
2. It will consist of competition for students and young professionals in two categories:
   1. Undergraduates (18 to 25 years);
   2. Advanced students and Professionals (25 to 35 years)
3. Undergraduates would be defined as those students currently enrolled in an Undergraduate (BS) program in a higher education institution or those having completed their BS but not yet enrolled in an MS or PhD program.
4. Advanced students and Professionals would be defined as those who are either enrolled in a Graduate Program (MS, PhD) in AI or employed in the field of AI
5. The essays may not be of less than 1300 words nor more than 1600 words (Font size 12) and each applicant may not submit more than one essay.
6. The essays must be submitted electronically in any of the 3 official OIC languages viz. Arabic, English or French.
7. The essays may not have been published either electronically or in print form prior to the competition.
8. The essays would be assessed for originality and practicality of the ideas proposed besides the clarity of expression and language.
9. The essays will be checked for plagiarism using standard software and those found to have high similarity index with published material would be automatically disqualified.
10. There would be a scrutiny to determine the eligibility of the submitting authors as per their respective categories as well as the anti-plagiarism test on each submission. The qualifying essays would be evaluated by an international Jury of 4 persons.
11. The 3 best essays selected in each category would be awarded suitable prizes. The ten best essays would be included in an ICYF-COMSTECH publication arranged specifically for this purpose.

iii:   Shortlisting of Applications

All applicants will be required to submit a brief introductory Write-up (abstract) for initial scrutiny (150 to 300 words).

iv:   Criteria for Evaluation

The following main evaluation criteria will be followed by the international jury:

• Structure and organization of Essay
• Technical mastery of the selected topic
• Novelty of the idea being proposed
• Application potential of the proposed theme

v:   Outline/Structure of Essay

The submitted essay should have the following indicators addressed

• Introduction and Background of Selected Topic (up to 250 words)
• Current State of Technology (up to 300 words)
• Proposed Idea and its Novelty Idea (up to 550 words)
• Implementation of Idea (up to 300 words) (stakeholders, target audience etc)
• Expected Impact on Society (up to 200 words)

vi:   Essay Topics

• AI in Health/Education

Medical imaging and diagnostics, Telehealth, Drug Creation, Therapeutics, Medical Treatment, Rehabilitation, Health Monitoring, e-learning, Learning Management, Personalized learning experience, Evaluations and assessments etc.

• AI for Technology Frontiers

ICT, Robotics, Mining, Smart Cities, IoT, Business, Marketing, Media, Chat-bots, Manufacturing, Customer Services, e-commerce etc.

• AI in E – Governance

Finance, Security, Justice, Crime fighting and prevention, Public policy, Informed decision making, Emergency response, Defence and National Security, Immigration etc.

• Ethical & Regulatory Issues in Applications of AI

Data privacy, digital crime fighting, AI – human co-existence, Robot rights, Biases in data, Liabilities for autonomous systems, AI weaponization etc.

• AI for Social Development

Equality and Inclusion, Hunger management, Economic empowerment, Gender equality, Environment, Infrastructure planning and development etc.

For Online Registration & Submission

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQHPYqNqcAZbY3QvchdJ-L0QT1BSpb40WUe_rTs-5KwrBHlQ/viewform

For Queries

Muhammad Haris Akram
Programme Manager
COMSTECH Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9220681-3
Fax: +92-51-9205264, +92-51-9220265
Email: events@comstech.org