Dhiaa al-Jumaili, AI strategy advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, said that the AI clubs aim to start Ai education from the grassroots.
“We will introduce and incorporate Ai into the education system in the future. This means we will strengthen our education. We are working with the Ministry of Education to realize this purpose,” Jumaili said, adding that the clubs will make Iraqi graduates realize their digital potential.
An AI club will also be opened in Erbil.
More than 600 people took part in the first AI conference held in Erbil on Saturday - a joint initiative between the Iraqi government and the Erbil-based Vision Education foundation. Local and international experts attended the conference.
Dr. Ali al-Sherbaz, academic director for digital skills at the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge, told the conference that the estimated 40-million population of Iraq needs about 40,000 skilled professionals in AI and cybersecurity.
He said that countries like Iraq must follow the steps taken by the likes of China and India, where they have a well-trained population when it comes to digital skills and education. He argued that the new skills will help with creating new jobs and reap financial gains for the country.
Azad Qasim, one of the conference organizers, told Rudaw that the conference is not just an arena for talks. “We also provide masterclasses that teach the participants about the AI applications in their field of work,” he said.
Stella Noor, an 11-year-old student from the Christian town of Hamdaniya in the Nineveh Plains, was the youngest participant in the conference. She made a 3D prosthetic hand that uses an AI program to function using camera recognition.
“The idea behind the project is to help people with disabilities. We know they face many challenges in their daily work,” Noor told Rudaw.
The conference also highlighted some of the challenges that AI has created, including the concentration of power in the hands of a few big tech companies and the increasing use of large language models by students to do their assignments.
