Revealed: Microsoft’s new AI campaign in Middle East

Global tech company Microsoft has launched a new campaign seeking to find real world solutions created by leveraging the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the Middle East.

The ‘Make your Wish’ campaign, launched this month, calls on individuals and organisations in the region to share their ideas about the possibilities with AI, and how they can change the world.

The initiative follows a three-step process – those wishing to participate can submit their request on a dedicated landing page on the company’s website. (Click here for the link)

Once checked by Microsoft’s editorial team, if selected, the submission will appear on a wish list – which currently includes options such as an AI lawyer/judge, an AI psychiatrist bot, a paragliding application, AI for waste management and a tool that will serve as a suicide preventer.

All the selected options will be open to the public for votes.

In the first quarter of 2019, a panel of ‘wish fulfillers’ will review all the submissions to choose a selection of wishes to make come true – and drive real implementation.

“Make Your Wish will act as a platform to bring ideas and imaginations together from bright minds on implementing artificial intelligence and how it could help improve lives – and empower people and organisations to achieve more,” the company said in a statement.

“By simply making a wish, people with ideas that can be enabled through AI technology can stand a real opportunity to not only be heard, but to bring real world impact.”

Microsoft has already been investing heavily in AI in the region.

Earlier this year, the company hosted its inaugural Hackfest – the first of its kind in the Gulf region – where customers from the public and private sector were invited to work with Microsoft’s engineers and data scientists to solve real-world problems using AI tools.

Organisations that attended the event included Dubai Municipality, DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre), MBC Group, the UAE University, du, Al Jaber Engineering & Contracting (ALEC) and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar.

“The event demonstrated the power of AI technologies to leading IT decision makers and gave them an opportunity to experience capabilities such as machine-learning, advanced analytics, and natural-language processing,” Necip Ozyucel, director of Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft Gulf, told Gulf Business earlier this year.

“The Gulf region has long led the world in the innovative application of technology. With AI, this attitude can be seen in a recently conducted Microsoft survey of 1,000 GCC organisations, which cited that over 29 per cent of enterprises are planning to Adopt AI and AI embedded use cases including predictive analytics, robotics and machine automation,” he said.

“At Microsoft, our goal is to make AI available to everyone. And we’re committed to making sure that our AI tools and technologies earn the trust of all.”

A report released by PwC earlier this year suggests that AI could add as much as $320bn to the regional GDP, with the GCC taking the lion’s share at roughly $277bn.

Retail, healthcare, transportation and education have already started seeing benefits from AI, while PwC believes that the construction and manufacturing sectors represent the biggest opportunities for AI in the GCC, followed by the energy, utilities and mining sectors, as well as the public sector.