1. Build Ethical AI Frameworks
Issue:
Limited adoption of ethical AI principles.
Recommendations:
- National regulators must implement nationwide frameworks and ensure their adoption.
- These frameworks should consider ethical principles and guidelines that align with Arabic values such as transparency, fairness, accountability, and respect for individual privacy.
- Private organisations should also ensure that the right policies are set in place to ensure the safe practice of AI that considers Arab culture.
- Qatar's National AI Strategy is focused on six pillars: 1) education, 2) data access, 3) employment, 4) business, 5) research, and 6) ethics. This represents a key step toward ethical AI practices at the national level. Further initiatives and artefacts endorsing safe AI practices are expected.
- To learn more about the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, please visit the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy for Qatar report (18-pages) available on their website.
2. Address Bias in AI Development
Issue:
Potential biases within AI development, particularly around language and culture, and a lack of engagement with diverse end users and persons with disabilities.
Recommendations:
- Companies developing AI solutions should avoid biases that may disproportionately impact specific groups within the Arabic-speaking population.
- Thorough studies should be conducted to identify and include all target groups within the solution.
- Ensure that AI technologies are developed with diverse teams that include individuals from different cultural backgrounds. This approach helps in creating more inclusive and culturally sensitive AI systems.
- Additionally, encouraging localised solutions where local start-ups tailor AI applications to address specific needs and challenges within Arabic-speaking communities is essential.
- Enhancing machine learning better to understand the needs and preferences of persons with disabilities.
- Develop an ethics framework for accurate and reflective data sets.
- Enhance machine learning to understand the needs of people with disabilities by connecting with communities firsthand.
3. Prioritise Privacy
Issue:
Privacy & protecting personal data
Recommendations:
- It is crucial to prioritise protecting individual privacy when developing AI-powered solutions, aligning with our cultural values. Hence, it is important that AI solutions are developed in line with the National Personal Data Protection Law and international best practices.
- Educate end users who include persons with disabilities, communities, families, and teachers on people’s rights.
4. Culture and Language
Issue:
Insufficient Arabic terminology for discussing disability and accessibility. AI is neither compatible with the Arabic language nor does it recognize specific linguistic and dialectal features.
Recommendations:
- Consult disability thought leaders and communities and reinforce compliance with capacity building and training led by government entities.
- Encourage localised solutions tailored to Arabic-speaking communities.
- Incentivise work within this area at a national level with relevant stakeholders.
- Work with academia to ensure Arabic learners are looking at the unique linguistic, cultural, and social aspects when developing AI systems.
- Collaborate and communicate regionally to share knowledge.
- National Regulators must ensure the AI Ethics framework is aligned with religious, cultural, and social values, ensuring cultural sensitivity.
5. Equity & Access
Issue:
High costs for disability communities/families to access the latest technologies. Many institutions assume that all students have internet access or laptops at home that they can use to complete assignments or join classes, which is untrue. When creating better accessibility in higher education, schools must also implement strategies to increase technical equity.
Recommendations:
- Address cost and affordability issues to ensure equitable opportunities.
- Ensure greater awareness of available resources through communication channels
- Signpost to platforms and re-positioning Accessible Qatar to become more of a useful guide for information flow and targeted communications.
6. Research and Academia
Issue:
lacking a ‘business case’ for accessibility and lack of training or motivation for developing accessible and inclusive technologies.
Recommendations:
- Invite universities and accelerators to a briefing that can be led by the key national stakeholders to highlight the importance of accessibility for all and Qatar’s national priorities.
- Conduct studies on the impact of technology on diverse people with disabilities.
- Champion and socialize the work of MADA, Accessibility Hub in HBKU – and celebrate organizations who are developing and implementing guidelines for accessible design.
- Look at ways to re-frame and challenge how universities and industry focus on traditional market demands to recognise the untapped market gains of developing technologies and services that benefit all.
- Ensure universal design principles and modules were made mandatory and not elective for students and any tech start-ups within Qatar.
- Encourage cooperative research between universities and communities of people with disabilities, including organizations and institutions that provide services to people with disabilities, to identify and better understand their challenges and meet their actual needs.
- Consider ways the government could incentivise Universities to drive greater awareness among staff and students on the importance of accessibility for all.
- MADA have been collaborating with partners like the Ministry of Education and Higher education and universities in Qatar (CCQ, HBKU, UDST) to develop digital accessibility courses aligned with MADA ICT-AID competency framework and to integrate these courses in undergraduate (CCP) and postgraduate levels.
- UDST are opening an eye-tracking lab that should be useful for assessing the ease of use in applications to end users and persons with disabilities.
7. Media & Communications
Issue:
A lack of awareness about the challenges and opportunities of AI for persons with disabilities and communities at both an industry and academic level and within home and work settings.
Recommendations:
- Launch a national awareness campaign with MSDF, MADA, and QF and other key national stakeholders to encourage greater public awareness around AI, addressing misconceptions and promoting awareness of the potential benefits of AI aligned with Arabic values.
- Promote AI literacy and educate the public about AI to foster a better understanding of its capabilities and limitations.
- Organise a national media briefing about the topic and highlight the need for media to play a frontline role in amplifying the voice of persons with disabilities and disability advocates.
- Encourage students to consider diverse community representation within their content and learning journeys to encourage the next generation of communicators to advocate for the integration of persons with disabilities within mainstream media.
- Host open media invitations to journalists at all key centres and organisations to encourage more integrated and inclusive story mining.
- Include regular TV/Radio segments and shows that could be hosted by a person with disabilities within mainstream media channels.
8. Technical Integration in Education
Issue:
Persons with disabilities can benefit from artificial intelligence in the classroom; however, digital campus course programs and/or online material can be inaccessible to some students. This results in institutions are significantly reducing the ability of these students to confer and compete with peers. Access for learners in higher education can take many forms because each student has unique needs and requirements rather so personalized education verses one size fit’s all approach that makes the adoption of ‘one’ universal tool or tech solution impossible.
Recommendations:
- Provide access to the latest technology via grants to schools, centers and private learning environments (auditing regularly) and ensuring its availability regardless of personal financial situation.
- Regularly update and expand the repository of accessible resources available to persons with disabilities, schools and families that can be loaned like a ‘library of things’.
- Motivate and encouraging persons with disabilities to participate in the learning process through technology, by customising the tools needed to support them.
- Develop a comprehensive vocational training program in VR that can support young people with diverse needs to prepare for the future of work.
- Integrate emerging digital technologies and ICT-AID courses into education and training curricula, aligning with Qatar's initiatives in Digital Skills and providing intensive training for teachers and offer regular communications to keep them up to date on the latest tools and technological advancements.
- Several initiatives have been launched by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in relation to Digital Skills. These initiatives aim to underline the impact of emerging digital technologies and trends on the current and future workforce of Qatar. With the support of key ecosystem stakeholders, the Ministry is working towards integrating the latest technological developments into education and training curricula. For more information, visit the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology website.
9. Private Sector Employment Practices
Issue:
Unemployment and underemployment among persons with disabilities and lack of awareness by employers on labour laws, or lack of compliance.
Recommendations:
- We need to ensure fair employment practices for individuals with diverse needs in the private sector to align with the global best practices and standards regarding disability employment.
- Ensure compliance with employment laws for people with diverse abilities (For example, in Article Four, stating a minimum of 2% of the total number of job opportunities shall be allocated to persons with disabilities), as it aligns with Qatar's goals for inclusion and diversity.
- We can help organize awareness campaigns and events to educate the private sectors about the benefits of hiring people with disabilities, fostering a supportive environment. We can also provide feedback, and further assistance as needed to support the development and implementation of the system in private companies.
- Introduce incentives for companies actively hiring persons with disabilities.
- Support compliance across all sectors with capacity building and training for employers and regular follow ups by dedicated specialists who can troubleshoot and act as mediators between employees and employers.
- Develop local AI-driven adaptive learning platforms to improve personalised skill development for future workers.
- Enhance platforms like Accessible Qatar to provide a more AI-driven job portal that can match individuals' skills, preferences, and abilities with suitable job opportunities, considering diverse abilities and needs. Encourage companies to offer more opportunities for remote work accessibility.
10. Collaboration and Coordination
Issue:
A lot of work may be happening that supports special needs communities, but without a national ‘sponsor’ and top-down as well as bottom-up support, efforts will be dispersed. Whilst the Motto ‘Nothing about us without us’ is well received, persons with disabilities and their families are not always engaged or consulted about policies and plans that impact their lives. Information flow is patchy or out of date with limited sources of reliable sources that can signpost to relevant information for persons with disabilities and their families.
Recommendations:
- Greater coordination by National agencies of efforts to avoid duplications and ensure the amplification of impact.
- Establish a disability advocacy-focused AI committee/ task force comprising representatives from various sectors and communities for the advocacy and empower community people with disabilities to monitor AI technologies for meaningful inclusivity and accessibility in Qatar.
- Consider running school-focused quarterly gatherings like Qatar Museums Authority meetings that foster greater communication between schools, families and Qatar Museum. These sessions could be hosted under the MSDF umbrella and take place at a different centre each time.
- Consider the use of ‘Citizen Assemblies’ that allow for deliberation by a wide range of people to make policy recommendations in relation to a particular issue or set of issues could also be considered if efforts could be coordinated.
- Include representation from MSDF and disability advocates within the National Artificial Intelligence committee to ensure advocacy for special needs communities is possible. For more details on the committee, visit the Artificial Intelligence Committee page on the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology website.
