This week, we welcomed our greatest and most geographically various cohort of DeepMind students but. We’re excited to replicate on the journey to this point, share extra on the following chapter of the DeepMind scholarships – and welcome many extra universities from world wide into the programme.
The scholarships journey to this point
AI could possibly be one of the crucial helpful and transformative applied sciences in historical past – and the mission to construct secure and useful AI spans a broad neighborhood. We established our scholarship programme in 2017 in an effort to assist construct a stronger and extra inclusive AI neighborhood, who can carry a wider vary of experiences to the fields of AI and pc science. The scholarships present monetary help to college students from underrepresented teams looking for to review graduate programs regarding AI and adjoining fields. However in fact, monetary obstacles should not the one obstacles that college students can face, so as well as, each scholar is matched with a private DeepMind mentor, who can help their aspirations and assist them to navigate educational life.
We began with eight improbable students who have been learning masters programs within the UK and US. The scholarships have been awarded to academically wonderful college students who belong to teams presently underrepresented in AI. This week, we welcomed greater than 50 students to our 2020 cohort alone.
Increasing the attain of our scholarships
Rising illustration in AI provides an enormous alternative to carry various values, hopes and issues into conversations in regards to the design and deployment of AI – and that is essential if AI goes to be a expertise that advantages everybody. Take alumnus scholar Shaquille, who wished to make use of machine studying to raised perceive sickle cell anaemia, a illness which disproportionately impacts Black folks.
As we celebrated our rising neighborhood, we thought-about the objective of the programme – to contribute to constructing a stronger and extra inclusive AI ecosystem – and we mirrored on who was excluded from it.
Our scholarships intention to help underrepresented college students – spanning gender, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic background. However imbalances within the area aren’t simply social, they’re additionally geographical. Final yr, 70% of all AI-related analysis was printed in Europe, the US, and China, whereas many different essential areas and international locations are considerably underrepresented. As an example, solely 0.3% of AI journal citations got here from sub-Saharan Africa between 2014-2018, and quite a few Japanese European international locations are fully absent from publication figures. This imbalance dangers making a expertise that solely accounts for the values, hopes and issues of a slim group, entrenching world inequalities whereas seeing massive components of the world miss out on the potential of AI to enhance folks’s lives by innovation in science, healthcare, and training.
That’s why right this moment, we’re delighted to announce that we’re increasing our programme to help students in lots of extra international locations presently underrepresented in AI, together with – Bulgaria, Colombia, Greece, Poland, Romania, South Africa, and Turkey. We’re additionally establishing new scholarships in Canada and France, and persevering with our help for students within the UK and the US. The total listing of universities partnering in our scholarships programme is right here.
There are numerous initiatives actively working to extend regional participation in AI, such because the Deep Studying Indaba, Khipu AI, and the Japanese European Machine Studying summer season faculty. We hope to enrich these efforts by enabling college students to pursue additional training in these areas with fewer monetary obstacles – contributing to regional hubs of excellence, whereas benefiting from the steering of a DeepMind mentor and a global neighborhood of scholar friends.
To make sure AI is of worldwide profit, expertise have to be nurtured in areas that are presently underrepresented in AI analysis, and house for geographically and socially various, native contributions to the sphere have to be made. We all know that growing entry to additional training is just one a part of addressing the deep-seated structural imbalances in AI, but it surely is a vital one and we’re completely satisfied to have the ability to contribute.
So this week, as we replicate on the achievements of students previous and current, and welcome the brand new 2020 cohort, we additionally look to the long run, as we hope others will likely be impressed to take the following step on their AI profession journeys too. To cite DeepMind alumna Benedetta, who studied at Oxford College: “Don’t underestimate the worth of your distinctive background.” It’s these distinctive backgrounds and views that may assist make the AI neighborhood stronger, extra various, and extra inclusive in years to return.
In the event you’re keen on turning into a DeepMind scholar, discover out extra in regards to the programme on our web site, uncover the colleges that participated within the scholarship programme this yr, and preserve an eye fixed out for upcoming bulletins from universities providing DeepMind scholarships beginning in 2021.
