Middle East’s first “Future Worlds Challenge” at IGCF 2022 has youth envision solutions to problems of the future

Sharjah: “The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed,” Leanne Fry, partner and facilitator of Smart Humans, an Australia-based digital training firm said quoting writer William Gibson as she encouraged a forum of youngsters to come up with three important technological innovations to ensure sustainability of human life on earth on the inaugural day of the 11th edition of the International Government Communication Forum (IGCF), on Wednesday, which is hosting the Middle East’s first ‘Future Worlds Challenge’ on its prestigious platform.

The challenge is the culmination of a five-day brainstorming session, which was organized as part of the pre-forum activities.

The two-day IGCF 2022, is taking place in Expo Center Sharjah, September 28 – 29, and the leading regional forum is hosting this challenge in a bid to establish a pioneering platform in the region for young creatives and technology enthusiasts to dabble in artificial intelligence (AI) applications and turn their ideas into projects that will benefit communities worldwide.

The session on September 28 presented youth with a quick-learning environment for finding solutions to daily problems. Participants explored how virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri could solve day-to-day problems such as waste management, poverty alleviation and time management. They worked in teams of 5-7 members and presented their pitches to the Smart Humans trainers to design the world of tomorrow, using Amazon Alexa, thus helping to formulate software-assisted conversations and envisioning potential future scenarios in the world of tomorrow.

Three finalists were chosen to make final project presentations on the IGCF 2022 stage to an expert panel, which they did in a session titled “Brave Discussions”. The winner will be announced at the Sharjah Government Awarding Ceremony tomorrow, Thursday.

“We have taken them through a process of thinking about their mindset, of all the elements in the world including the environment, people, sustainability and climate, as well as technology and how they want to use it. We got school students, their teachers, college students, and also some government officials to attend this session so that young people understand adult perspectives and both learn from each other,” noted Fry who is also Chief Innovation Officer at AUSTRAC, a financial intelligence agency in Australia. Smart Humans, which has been active since 2017, seeks “to make humans thoughtful users of technology, not mindless consumers”, the digital executive underlined.

The two-day IGCF 2022 is organized by the International Government Communication Center (IGCC), an initiative of the Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB), and has convened over 160 senior public officials, thought leaders and experts, who will lead exciting debates and discussions to highlight how government communication can be employed to not just overcome local and global governance challenges and socio-economic crises, but has the potential to transform them into opportunities.

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