Brussels, Belgium, – FARI AI for the Common Good Institute launched its first training under the innovative AI Academy program to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) to relevant professions working towards the common good.

The first training, “AI Introduction for the Medical Professions,” is designed to bridge the gap between AI technology and healthcare by educating medical professionals on the applications, benefits, and ethical considerations of AI in the medical field. Like in many industries, AI has been extensively used in medical sciences, from patient diagnostics, drug research and development, communication and logistics, and remote treatment, among others. As such, FARI invited 50+ staff members from UZ Brussel and Vrije Universiteit Brussel medical faculty for tailored training to explore examples of good and bad practices of AI technology in their everyday environment.

“Medical staff members need to understand what AI is capable of achieving and need to evaluate how their role can be improved with AI,” said Karen Boers, FARI’s Strategy and AI Academy Coordinator, when asked about the need to train medical professionals about AI.

Developed and provided by Prof. Johan Loeckx, Assistant Professor and Lab Manager at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, the training focused on tackling use cases and potential solutions that encompass the technical, ethical, and legal aspects of technology. As the lead of the applied R&D team & lifelong learning programme, Prof. Loeckx also discussed with the medical professionals the need for collaboration with data scientists who build AI systems to figure out the kind of data available for model training and, once built, the right approach for analysis and interpretation.