Bhutan AI Society (bAIs)-where wisdom meets innovation

BBhutan AI Society (bAIs) is the forerunner AI community in Bhutan dedicated to fostering dialogues, networking, and bolstering AI advancements in Bhutan. At bAIs, we believe that all Bhutanese benefit from the responsible application and optimization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancement(s) through a thriving community engagement and policy innovation.  bAIs focuses on converging everyone for a shared, learned and built AI community of practice in Bhutan.

bAIs explores and recommends solutions to advance AI towards constructive application for all Bhutanese and society at large. This is achieved by educating the public, framing recommendations, developing tools and mobilizing resources by bringing voices together to share insights that can be synthesized into actions. This is followed by working to drive adoption in practice, informing public policy and advancing citizenry awareness. Further, its body of actions intends to harness benefits of the AI developments to enhance efficiency, authenticity and systemic revolutions in the socio-economic sphere of technologies.

Through the interventions of bAIs, Bhutan gains a valuable understanding of its AI landscape, informs policy decisions, and ensures inclusive, equitable and responsible AI development that benefits our people.

Our Vision

All Bhutanese empowered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to achieve a just, prosperous, and sustainable society.

Our Mission

All Bhutanese benefit by the wisdom of responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) through thriving community engagement and policy innovation, unlocking its potential to enhance Gross National Happiness.

Our Goals

bAIs strives to achieve its mission through these strategic goals

Create bAIs Community:

bAIs creates an inclusive and equitable community across Bhutan and beyond to foster community engagement, dialogues, networking and learning. A community that contributes, takes actions and drives responsible AI advancements in Bhutan.

Inform Public

bAIs ensure all our Bhutanese are better informed about the social and societal impacts of AI. Our community and public are well aware of the AI developments, tools and responsible AI practice to enhance positive outcomes.

Policy Innovation

Create an enabling environment for policy formulations. bAIs contributes towards inclusive and consultative policy formulations by connecting both the developers and the consumers on board for policy discussions.

Talks to Realities

Put words into actions. Objectives of bAIs remain incomplete without putting the talks into practice. We ensure the outcomes of the dialogues, networks and discussions are put into practice and turned into realities.

Our pillars

Timely Existence of bAIs

Bhutan stands at a crossroads, where the acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) runs in tandem with its adoption as evidenced from the practice of other countries. On other hand, this has called for an ethical consideration of AI application and responsible consumption. While AI empowers the livelihood of Bhutanese people; bAIs believes in the complementarity between the AI and the development philosophy of Gross National Happiness.

The AI community in Bhutan still needs to be more vibrant and ensure people are committed to open science and open technologies and want to participate in the new wave of AI innovations.

Therefore, collaboration and knowledge sharing help community build a thriving environment for a fleet-footed AI innovation and inclusivity, besides identifying risk and building a body of mitigative measures to take AI to greater heights. 

Understanding the need, bAIs was established on December 17, 2023 as a potential non-profit organization by AI enthusiasts to pursue a shared aspiration to embrace AI mechanisms for sensible human developments. 

FAQs

What is Bhutan AI Society (bAIs)?

The Bhutan AI Society (bAIs) is an AI community in Bhutan committed to support and enhance advancement and development across the AI technology landscape to accelerate progress, improve safety, security and trust in AI, and maximize benefits to all Bhutanese and the society.

bAIs community believe that inclusive and equitable AI development is essential for safe and responsible AI that benefit society.

What is the intend of bAIs?

The bAIs is established to create opportunities everywhere through networking, fostering dialogues, and knowledge sharing around AI that can shape the evolution of AI in ways that better reflect the needs and the complexity of our societies.

The bAIs AI is focused on fostering an open community and enabling developers and researchers to accelerate responsible innovation in AI while ensuring scientific rigor, trust, safety, security, diversity and economic competitiveness. By bringing together Policy makers, government agencies, developers, academic institutions, companies, innovators, media and AI enthusiasts, we will pool resources and knowledge to address safety concerns while providing a platform for sharing and developing solutions that fit everyone.

Who is part of the bAIs community?

To ensure advancement and developments in AI benefits everyone and that it is built responsibly, the bAIs community consists of a broad range of stakeholders that are working across aspects of AI education, research, development and deployment, and governance.

We are:

  • AI enthusaists
  • Policy Makers
  • Academic Institution
  • Developers
  • Media Institutions
  • Government Agencies
  • Development Partners
  • CSOs/NGOs
  • Innovators
How does bAIs work?

bAIs work by bringing together stakeholders and forming the member-driven working groups of all sectors and across the country. The bAIs constitutes a governing board (Thought Leaders) and technical oversight committee dedicated to providing overall strategic guidance on achieving the goals and ensuring overall project standards and guidelines.

bAIs community share their work, ideas, research outcomes, products and spark the discussions and dialogues through networking sessions. The outcomes of the networking session is then put it into a framework, and transformed into a actionable insights. Through this, the AI products such as tools, educational resources, and policy frameworks are developed and disseminated across the country.

What do members contribute?

The members are the primary driver of objectives of bAIs:

  • bAIs members support and contributes towards the vision and missions of bAIs.
  • Responsibly advance the ecosystem of bAIs community and contribute towards development, deployment and advancement of AI related tools and resources that can help address society-wide challenges in climate, human health, and beyond.
  • Support AI skills building, education, and exploratory research. Engage the academic community to support researchers and students to learn and contribute to essential AI model and tool research projects.
  • Develop educational content and resources to inform the public discourse and policymakers on benefits, risks, solutions and precision regulation for AI.
  • Launch initiatives that encourage open development of AI in safe and beneficial ways, and host events to explore AI use cases and showcase how Alliance members are using open technology in AI responsibly and for good.
  • Support the advocacy and enablement of insights of bAIs to public and ensuring appropriate contents are being shared online.
  • Explore and support the resource mobilization to achieve the goals of the bAIs
Why is bAIs important for Bhutan?

bAIs is the first AI community in Bhutan that aims to foster dialogues, networking and responsible AI development in Bhutan. Bringing together stakeholders from diverse background, bAIs is an agent of change especially in AI landscape in Bhutan. Responsible AI development holds immense potential for Bhutan’s future and bAIs can help Bhutan achieve it. bAIs can help Bhutan:

  • Empower citizens: AI can revolutionize healthcare, education, and livelihood opportunities, ensuring inclusive and equitable growth for all.
  • Preserve heritage: AI tools can safeguard our cultural treasures and promote sustainable practices, ensuring ecological balance and responsible development.
  • Enhance governance: Data-driven solutions can improve efficiency, transparency, and accountability within government institutions, fostering public trust.
  • Boost competitiveness: Bhutan can leverage AI to become a regional leader in sustainable and ethical tech development, attracting investment and creating high-skilled jobs.

To date, some of the most exciting progress in AI has been driven by collaborative and open research and development: from data and developer frameworks, to models and model cards, to conferences and papers with code. And, this approach benefits everyone – industry, academia, and society.