- Four winning projects to support AI companies working in higher education, healthcare, finance and recruiting
- Winners will now receive up to ยฃ130,000 to develop their solutions
- Competition further fuels the push for the development of safe and responsible AI
Four organizations receiving funding under the Government's AI Equity Innovation Challenge will develop new solutions to address bias and discrimination in AI systems in higher education, healthcare, finance and recruitment.
The Challenge, managed by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and delivered by Innovate UK, was set up to fund new ways of tackling statistical, human and structural bias and discrimination in AI systems. DSIT will now invest more than ยฃ465,000 in four winning bids, announced today (6 February):
Higher education: The Open University will look at ways to improve the fairness of AI systems in higher education.
Finance: The Alan Turing Institute will create a fairness toolkit for SMEs and developers to self-assess and monitor fairness in large language models (LLMs) used in the financial sector.
Health care: King's College London will design a solution to tackle bias and discrimination in healthcare. The project will mitigate bias in early warning systems used to predict cardiac arrest on hospital wards, based on the CogStack Foresight model.
Recruitment: Coefficient Systems Ltd.'s solution will focus on reducing bias in automated CV screening algorithms often used in the recruitment sector.
Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said:
Our White Paper on AI encourages greater public confidence in the development of AI, while encouraging a growing number of people and organizations to harness its potential.
Winners of the Fairness Innovation Challenge will now develop next-generation solutions, putting the UK at the forefront of developing AI for the public good.
The winners were selected by expert evaluators chosen by DSIT and Innovate UK. The rigorous assessment process considered potential impact, innovation and alignment with the proposed AI regulatory principles, including fairness, set out in the UK White Paper. A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation.
DSIT looks forward to the continued progress and impact of these new solutions to help shape a fair AI landscape for the future. Projects will begin on 1 May and winners will be supported by DSIT and regulators the EHRC and ICO to ensure their solutions align with data protection and equality legislation.
For more information visit the Just Innovation Challenge website.
