Legacy

The Knowledge 4 All Foundation (K4A) has significantly advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and open education through various initiatives and collaborations. Key achievements and their lasting impact include:

1. Advancing AI Research and Collaboration

European AI Excellence Networks: K4A actively participated in the HumanE AI Network and ELISE, both part of the H2020 ICT-48-2020 call, fostering AI research excellence in Europe. These networks focused on developing AI technologies aligned with European ethical values and societal norms. K4A’s involvement contributed to shaping AI research directions, methods, and results, ensuring that AI advancements benefit individuals and society.
NAIXUS Project: As a founding partner of the Network of Excellence on AI and the United Nations SDGs (NAIXUS), K4A convened meetings to discuss progress and plan future actions to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals through AI research. This initiative fosters a global network of researchers collaborating to harness AI for societal betterment.

2. Promoting Open Education

ENCORE+ Project: K4A concluded its participation in the European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+), an Erasmus+ project aimed at enhancing the adoption and innovation of Open Educational Resources (OER) across Europe. K4A played a pivotal role in developing a European OER innovation area by connecting stakeholder communities and fostering knowledge exchange.
VideoLectures.Net: K4A supports VideoLectures.Net, a leading web-based educational portal offering over 35,000 academic talks enhanced by machine translations and transcriptions. This platform promotes the most outstanding achievements in science and technology, providing free and open access to high-quality educational content.

3. Supporting Low-Resource Language Processing

Lacuna Fund NLP Projects: K4A completed Natural Language Processing projects under the Lacuna Fund initiative, developing open and accessible datasets for machine learning applications focused on low-resource languages and cultures in Africa and Latin America. These efforts significantly contributed to creating inclusive datasets addressing critical needs in these regions.

4. Establishing UNESCO Chairs

UNESCO Chair in Artificial Intelligence: K4A facilitated the establishment of the UNESCO Chair in Artificial Intelligence at University College London, focusing on AI as a driver for solutions and strategies to assist in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The Chair contributes to how information can be intelligently assimilated and utilized across various sectors and services.
UNESCO Chair on Open Technologies for OER and Open Learning: Established to promote the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) and the use of open technologies to support inclusive, equitable, and quality education worldwide. Focused on creating and sharing open educational practices, tools, and platforms to democratize access to learning, especially in underprivileged communities. Collaborated globally to align OER initiatives with Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education), enhancing access and innovation in learning through open technologies.
UNESCO Chair for Open Educational Resources and Artificial Intelligence (formerly Teacher Training Technologies with OER): Aimed to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) with OER to enhance teacher training and professional development. Focused on leveraging AI-driven systems to create personalized and scalable learning resources for educators, improving their pedagogical effectiveness. Contributed to bridging the gap between AI advancements and education, empowering teachers in developing regions to access cutting-edge, localized, and impactful learning tools.

5. Developing AI Products and Tools

Machine Translation for Videos: K4A co-funded the development of a large-scale automatic transcription and translation system, enhancing accessibility to video content across different languages.
Personalisation of educational content: X5GON platform is an advanced open-source solution that seamlessly aggregates, processes, and delivers Open Educational Resources (OER) from diverse global repositories, using AI-driven personalization to enhance learning accessibility and engagement for users worldwide.
Credentify: As the first European technology acting as issuer of blockchain-secured stackable ECTS credentials, Credentify offers university and student-owned, verifiable credentials accessible anywhere, anytime.

6. Global South: Empowering African AI

Capacity Building: Through funding of workshops, tutorials, and mentorship programs, K4A enhanced the skills and knowledge of participants, empowering them to contribute effectively to the global AI community.
Highlighting African Research: By providing a platform for African researchers to present their work, K4A elevated the visibility of African contributions to AI, promoting diversity in the field.

7. Artificial Intelligence for Development (AI4D) program through its micro-projects initiative

Funding and Support: AI4D provided financial support ranging from USD 5,000 to 8,000 to selected micro-projects, enabling researchers to pursue innovative AI applications.
Diverse Applications: The funded projects spanned various sectors, including healthcare, agriculture, education, and environmental conservation, addressing both scientific and social challenges.
Geographical Reach: Projects were implemented across nine African countries, fostering a continent-wide network of AI researchers and practitioners.
Capacity Building: The initiative emphasized creating datasets and developing scalable, long-term AI solutions accessible to the general public and research community.
Grand Challenge: The micro-projects initiative led to the first African Grand Challenge in AI, focusing on curing leishmaniasis, a neglected disease affecting the region.

8. Funding programmes and innovative incentive models for Artificial Intelligence research

Challenge Programme: Organized global competitions in AI, including challenges on visual object recognition and natural language processing, engaging hundreds of researchers to push the boundaries of innovation.
European Commission Projects: Participated in flagship EU initiatives such as PASCAL, HumanE AI and ELISE, fostering ethical AI development and enhancing Europe’s global research capacity.
Harvest Programme: Enabled academia-industry collaborations to translate research into practical applications, resulting in impactful tools for video annotation, sentiment analysis, and more.
International Development Programme: Focused on underserved regions, particularly Africa, supporting initiatives like Deep Learning Indaba and advancing AI for low-resource settings.
International Reports: Produced influential global reports on AI’s ethical, social, and technological dimensions, shaping international policies and research agendas.
Lacuna Fund: Developed open datasets tailored for low-resource languages and cultures, promoting inclusive machine learning applications in Africa and Latin America.
Pump Prime Programme: Funded exploratory, high-impact research projects in areas such as climate modeling, neuroimaging, and natural language processing, seeding innovative breakthroughs.
UNESCO Chairs Programme: Established three UNESCO Chairs in AI and Open Education, driving global collaboration and advancing the integration of AI with open learning initiatives.

Legacy and Impact

K4A’s initiatives have left a lasting legacy by promoting ethical AI development, enhancing open education, and supporting low-resource language processing. Through establishing networks, supporting projects, and developing tools, K4A has fostered collaboration and innovation, contributing to the global AI and education communities.