Connectionists: Get involved! ITU/WHO Focus Group on “Artificial Intelligence for Health” (FG-AI4H)

[Kuglitsch, Monique]

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing on behalf of the Focus Group on “Artificial Intelligence for Health” (FG-AI4H<https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/ai4h/Pages/default.aspx>). With this email, I would like to inform you of our activities. Furthermore, I would like to invite you and your colleagues to become involved in this important project.

Please mark your calendar for our upcoming workshop/meetings: 22–25 January 2019 at the Swiss Tech Convention Center in Lausanne, Switzerland (details and registration can be found here<https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/Workshops-and-Seminars/ai4h/20190122/Pages/default.aspx>); and 2–5 April 2019 in Shanghai, China.

As you may be aware, “big data” and powerful artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms promise to revolutionize healthcare and research. However, while AI algorithms can assist with many tasks in health including diagnosis, decision-making, or early detection, these algorithms are highly complex and depend on the underlying training data. When AI algorithms are poorly designed and/or the training data are biased or incomplete, errors or problematic results can occur. Therefore, an AI algorithm should only be used with high confidence if it has been quality controlled through a rigorous evaluation against a system of standards.

Towards developing such standards, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) established FG-AI4H in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO). ITU and WHO have considerable experience in the standardization of information/communication technologies and the health domain, respectively, making FG-AI4H ideally positioned for establishing a standard assessment framework of AI for health.

The process is as follows. Iterant Calls for proposals: use cases and data are published (“use cases” refers to medical conditions that can be diagnosed with AI and for which medical data are available). The current version can be found here<https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/ai4h/Documents/FGAI4H-B-102-DraftCfP_UC_Benchm_Data.pdf>. The resulting proposals are presented and evaluated at the workshop/meetings. During the previous workshop/meeting, eight use cases were accepted by FG-AI4H. The press release, including the details of the use cases, can be found here<https://news.itu.int/artificial-intelligence-health-new-use-cases/>. In the next phase of the project, training data from these use cases are made available to AI developers. Then, iterant Calls for AI technology for health are published. These AI applications are tested using confidential data from the respective use cases.

As you can infer, the success of this project depends on active participation of the medical, machine learning, and regulatory communities. Therefore, I hope that you will visit the above links, consider the importance of this project, and become involved.

Best wishes,

Monique Kuglitsch


--
Dr. Monique M. Kuglitsch
Innovation Manager
Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications,
Heinrich Hertz Institute, HHI
Berlin, Germany
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