On 15 May, the Council of Europe HELP course "Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights" was launched for Ukrainian civil servants. The launch was organised within the Second international conference "Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration: Challenges, Opportunities, Perspectives". The event brought together around 100 civil servants, academia and researchers to address the challenges and explore opportunities related to the use of AI in public administration in Ukraine.
The conference was organised by the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service, Higher School of Public Governance, National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" and Council of Europe Project "HELP (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals) for Ukraine, including during wartime" Phase II.
Ms Hilde Haug, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine drew attention to the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law as a first of its kind global legally binding instrument designed to ensure that AI upholds common standards in human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and to minimise the risk of those rights and principles being undermined as a result of the use of AI.
Ms Albina Ovcearenco, Head of Digital Development Unit of the Council of Europe presented the Framework Convention and its AI risk-management framework, supported by the HUDERIA Methodology a non-legally binding tool designed to help states assess AI-related risks and impacts.
The recently updated HELP course "Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights" was adapted to the national legal context and launched as a tutored course for civil servants with the aim to enhance their understanding of AI technologies and their human rights implications.
The course provides information about the most important instruments at international and European level, and their practical implementation across Europe and beyond, focusing on the Council of Europe and the European Union frameworks.
The national tutors of the course will accompany the group over the next three months: Mr Vasyl Oryshchuk, researcher at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Founder & CEO "AI-Experiment" and Mr Maksym Valin, HELP tutor, Co-founder & Executive Director "AI-Experiment", educational consultant.
The HELP course “Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights" is also available on the HELP Platform in self-learning format. New users to the HELP platform will have to create an account before accessing this course or any of the 67 online courses available in self-learning format. Currently, 47 HELP courses are available in Ukrainian on the CoE HELP E-learning Platform, and the full catalogue of HELP courses is available here.
