UNESCO Director-General to visit India to Strengthen Strategic Partnership with focus on Heritage, Education and AI

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UNESCO

Release Date

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

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New Delhi, 4 February—UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay will carry out an official visit to India from 4 to 6 February with a view to reinforcing the strategic partnership between the Organization and India, one of UNESCO’s founding members.

During her visit, the Director-General is expected to meet Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and the Minister of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, and the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Prahlad Singh Patel. In her meetings, Ms Azoulay will explore opportunities to develop UNESCO’s partnership with India with a particular focus on culture and education as well as artificial intelligence (AI) as Member States have asked UNESCO to develop a standard-setting instrument for the ethics in AI.

The Director-General will begin her trip on 4 February, with a visit to the Raj Ghat memorial to pay her respects to Mahatma Gandhi who has had a profound influence on UNESCO.

On 5 February, Ms Azoulay will travel to Jaipur, which last June became India’s 38th World Heritage site. She will attend the special ceremony honouring UNESCO in the city’s Albert Hall alongside the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot.

The Director-General will also visit several other World Heritage sites including Humayun’s Tomb and the Red Fort in New Delhi and Amer Fort in Rajasthan. In the Indian capital, she will also see the National Museum’s “Indian Heritage in Digital Space” exhibition, which showcases augmented reality displays of five UNESCO World Heritage sites.

While in Rajasthan, Ms Azoulay will call on the Girls Secondary School in Amer, reflecting UNESCO’s commitment to girls’ education as in the Director-General’s words “Investing in a girl’s education is one of the most effective ways to ensure a better life for her, and a better world for us all.”

On 6 February, the last day of her visit, the Director-General will address the opening of a seminar on “The Future of Education – Artificial Intelligence for Social and Emotional Learning” organized by the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP).

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