This week, we welcomed our largest and most geographically various cohort of DeepMind students but. We’re excited to mirror 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 might be one of the vital helpful and transformative applied sciences in historical past – and the mission to construct secure and useful AI spans a broad group. We established our scholarship programme in 2017 in an effort to assist construct a stronger and extra inclusive AI group, who can convey 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 check graduate programs regarding AI and adjoining fields. However in fact, monetary boundaries will not be 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 tutorial life.
We began with eight unbelievable students who had been finding out masters programs within the UK and US. The scholarships had been awarded to academically glorious college students who belong to teams at present underrepresented in AI. This week, we welcomed greater than 50 students to our 2020 cohort alone.
Increasing the attain of our scholarships
Growing illustration in AI presents an enormous alternative to convey various values, hopes and considerations into conversations concerning the design and deployment of AI – and that is crucial if AI goes to be a know-how that advantages everybody. Take alumnus scholar Shaquille, who needed to make use of machine studying to higher perceive sickle cell anaemia, a illness which disproportionately impacts Black individuals.
As we celebrated our rising group, we thought of the aim 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 purpose to help underrepresented college students – spanning gender, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic background. However imbalances within the discipline aren’t simply social, they’re additionally geographical. Final 12 months, 70% of all AI-related analysis was printed in Europe, the US, and China, whereas many different vital areas and nations are considerably underrepresented. As an illustration, solely 0.3% of AI journal citations got here from sub-Saharan Africa between 2014-2018, and quite a few Jap European nations are fully absent from publication figures. This imbalance dangers making a know-how that solely accounts for the values, hopes and considerations of a slender group, entrenching world inequalities whereas seeing massive components of the world miss out on the potential of AI to enhance individuals’s lives by means of innovation in science, healthcare, and schooling.
That’s why as we speak, we’re delighted to announce that we’re increasing our programme to help students in lots of extra nations at present 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 complete record of universities partnering in our scholarships programme is right here.
There are lots of initiatives actively working to extend regional participation in AI, such because the Deep Studying Indaba, Khipu AI, and the Jap European Machine Studying summer season faculty. We hope to enhance these efforts by enabling college students to pursue additional schooling in these areas with fewer monetary boundaries – contributing to regional hubs of excellence, whereas benefiting from the steering of a DeepMind mentor and a global group of scholar friends.
To make sure AI is of worldwide profit, expertise should be nurtured in areas that are at present underrepresented in AI analysis, and house for geographically and socially various, native contributions to the sector should be made. We all know that rising entry to additional schooling is just one a part of addressing the deep-seated structural imbalances in AI, nevertheless it is a crucial one and we’re completely happy to have the ability to contribute.
So this week, as we mirror 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 probably 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 group stronger, extra various, and extra inclusive in years to come back.
In the event you’re enthusiastic about changing into a DeepMind scholar, discover out extra concerning the programme on our web site, uncover the schools that participated within the scholarship programme this 12 months, and maintain an eye fixed out for upcoming bulletins from universities providing DeepMind scholarships beginning in 2021.