DUBAI, (Pakistan Point News - 23rd May, 2021) The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution UAE (C4IR UAE), managed by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), has named LuxAI winner of its Smart Toys Competition, which aims to solve learning and societal integration challenges faced by children of determination.
The Luxemburg-based company captured the jury’s attention with its QTrobot, an expressive humanoid social robot for children with special needs and autism.
The winner is to receive support from DFF and Abu Dhabi’s Early Childhood Authority (ECA) in developing their toy concepts and prototypes, and piloting them with relevant UAE-based entities.
Launched earlier in 2021 in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF), ECA and the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence, the competition invites local and global SMEs that design smart toys powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to compete across four categories; namely Health and Nutrition, Family Support, Child Protection, and Early Care and Education.
The top three winners, which include SmartLife Robotics and Amaisys Technologies S.L.U., were chosen out of 30 applicants globally by an international panel of expert judges, comprising representatives of WEF, the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence, ECA, Dubai Future Accelerators and C4IR UAE.
On this occasion, Professor Klaus Schwab, WEF Founder and Executive Chairman, said, "AI-powered toys have tremendous potential benefits for children's learning, play, and growth; the World Economic Forum, launched the Generation AI project that focuses on responsible and innovative AI for children and youth. We believe that smart toys should be designed ethically and responsibly to protect, educate, and empower children.
"With the rapid pace of technological change around the world, even toys are quickly changing. Artificial intelligence is transforming the world and also transforming children's toys and childhood itself."
Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of DFF, emphasised the role of the Smart Toy Competition to encourage innovation in AI, which will enhance efforts to design solutions that empower, engage children of determination and help them reach their developmental goals.
Belhoul said, "The competition provides an ideal platform for building synergies with innovators and creators, especially AI solution developers, with the aim of designing the future, promoting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, facilitating knowledge transfer and leveraging future tools to develop effective solutions to the challenges facing vital sectors, such as education, health and community inclusion."
For her part, ECA Director-General Sana Mohamed Suhail praised the noteworthy efforts of DFF and the UAE Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution to identify and empower companies working on enhancing children’s wellbeing, specifically children of determination.
She also touched on the importance of promoting collaborations with unique interventions working at the intersection of early childhood development and safe technology, noting that these efforts can enhance access to innovative tools and practices, enriching the developmental journeys for the children of Abu Dhabi and transforming people’s way of thinking to the needs of young children and address them.
The Polish start-up; SmartLife Robotics, specialises in building AI-powered robots and toys that boost children’s cognitive development, presented KODI 2.0, a robotic teacher’s assistant that could perform various tasks autonomously and teach children in a home environment.
