Hero Awards and Afghan Women Rising Build AI Solution Engine for UN Sustainability Goals

The Hero Awards, in collaboration with Afghan Women Rising, are developing the world’s largest ‘solution engine’ for the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as announced during the Geneva plenary session. The initiative aims to create AI agents for each of the 169 specific targets underlying the broader goals, starting with platforms like OpenAI’s GPTs, Gemini’s Gems, and Claude Artifacts, and evolving into fully autonomous assistants that continuously update themselves to achieve progress.

John Toomey, CIO of the project, explained that each target is being transformed into a prompt for AI bots. A significant portion of the work is being carried out by members of Afghan Women Rising, young women in Afghanistan who are denied formal education under Taliban rule. These women build the bots online and then refine the prompts through in-person discussions, adding a human element to the AI development process.

Program Director Amy Chang highlighted the dual benefit: ‘Having these girls design the prompts allows them to sidestep the ban against schooling. They get valuable experience building projects that will contribute to sustainability both in and outside of their own country for a long while, and prepare themselves for a time in which their talents will be vital for the country’s future.’

The girls have drawn inspiration from the writings of J. Kutcher, particularly her metaphor of garden plant growth representing the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual development of young women. Once a protocol is completed, its creator becomes eligible for a Hero Award, which requires suggesting previously unknown strategies for advancing the UN targets. Successful projects are featured on the Hero Awards website and in press releases.

Since the program’s launch six months ago, individuals from other organizations in the Global South have requested involvement, and future iterations will include groups such as PARI People’s Archive of Rural India, which supports underserved populations in rural India; Siku.org, serving First Nations in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland; Cybersmartafrica.org, a collective of teachers and students in Senegal preserving local cultures and improving digital literacy; Terrastories, an open-source application for South American and Amazonian indigenous communities to map oral histories; and Winyama, an Australian indigenous group using cultural mapping to document Dreamtime stories and biological data.

June Hero Award winners include Tara Jensen, Maria Ortiz, Herman Matsui, and Wilhelmina Searles. More information is available on the Hero Awards network and related social media channels. The UN’s SDG targets can be viewed at sdgs.un.org/goals.

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