DUBAI: MIT Technology Review Arabia, part of Majarra, has released the first edition of its “30 Leading Arab Experts in AI” list for 2022.
The list includes Arabs who are leading experts in artificial intelligence (AI), holding significant positions in the public, private, or academic sectors in various regional and global organizations.
“We have a lot of Arab superstars and rising stars in artificial intelligence who are doing brilliant work regionally and globally,” Hamoud Al-Mahmoud, chief content officer at Majarra told Arab News.
“By launching this annual list, our goal at Majarra and MIT Technology Review Arabia is to highlight these incredible profiles and spark opportunities for collaboration and exchange as AI increasingly takes a key role in our lives.”
Those included in the list are leaders, entrepreneurs and researchers who have played a key role in increasing the adoption of AI technologies.
They have been involved in creating AI start-ups and driving research in the field across various disciplines, such as natural language processing, robotics, artificial vision, machine learning, the Internet of Things, big data and chat-bots.
AI is a key area of focus for the MIT Technology Review, which has a section dedicated to the topic as well as the “Al Khawarazmiya” (algorithm) daily newsletter.
After several stages of evaluation, the selection committee finalized the list based on how the experts’ specialization, experience, or practical application of AI served their organization or project working in the Arab region.
To make the final cut, they were assessed on making a contribution to increasing the adoption of AI, launching start-ups utilizing AI and fulfilling a specific human need.
Their application of AI technology research across various community sectors and their efforts to simplify the science behind AI to help young researchers and entrepreneurs were also taken into account.
“It wasn’t easy to select the finalists; our editorial committee went through around 280 profiles and a long process to finally decide on the list,” said Al-Mahmoud.
The final evaluation produced 30 experts — 12 women and 18 men — from across the region including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Oman, Lebanon, Bahrain and Tunisia.
