IFIP Partners with XPRIZE in Support of IBM Watson Artificial Intelligence XPRIZE

The global ICT professional association, International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), has signed a formal Advocate Partnership Agreement with XPRIZE to leverage its extensive membership and relationship base in support of the new $5M IBM Watson Artificial Intelligence (AI) XPRIZE competition.

XPRIZE, the global leader in incentivized prize competitions, announced the new AI XPRIZE in February this year, to promote collaboration and exploration into ways that AI and human-machine interaction can help to solve the world’s greatest challenges.

As an Advocate Partner, IFIP will promote the AI competition to its 500,000+ membership base, encouraging those with an interest in AI to participate in the four-year competition. IFIP will identify and propose judges and scientific advisory board members, including its own IFIP experts, and has agreed to engage its member community to find mentors and technical experts to assist the teams in refining and enhancing their submissions.

“We are very grateful to IFIP for partnering on this important advocate role for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE,” said Amir Banifatemi, prize lead for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE.” One of the goals of the competition is to promote wider collaboration and support from the AI community to help innovators create scalable solutions and audacious breakthroughs to address humanity’s grandest challenges. This partnership is a big step toward our goal.”

Registration for the competition opened in June with teams invited to declare their own goal and solution to the challenge. The competition will be held over four years, with annual milestone competitions in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and the top three finalists competing for the Grand Prize at TED 2020.

IFIP President, Leon Strous, said the professional body is delighted to be playing a role in support of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE.

“AI has enormous potential not only to solve problems but also to offer new and better ways of engaging in activities ranging from business interactions and transactions to improving the delivery of education, health services, entertainment and more,” he said.

“We look forward to working with XPRIZE to maximise awareness of the AI competition and to assist teams in creating positive outcomes for themselves and the broader community.”

Registration for the AI XPRIZE must be submitted by the end of December 2016, with the first project milestones due for delivery in October 2017.

For more information, and to register to compete, visit ai.xprize.org.