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UNICC has joined the Digital Public Goods Alliance! The announcement happened during the UN Open Source Week side event “Accelerate SDG Impact, Scaling Open Source”, with Lucy Harris, COO, DPGA Secretariat; Emily Bennett, Head of Digital Public Solutions, UNICC; and Anish Sethi, Chief, Digital Solutions Centre, UNICC.As a member of the DPGA, The United Nations International Computing Centre marked a strategic step forward in its mission to enable inclusive and sustainable digital transformation across the UN system, other international organisations, and governments.“Joining the DPGA is a natural extension of our mission to support the United Nations’ digital transformation journey. Our technical and strategic contributions can help ensure that digital public goods are developed and deployed in a way that reflects the values, needs, and standards of the UN system.” said Sameer Chauhan, Director, UNICC.“We are proud to welcome UNICC to the DPGA. Their membership not only supports the United Nations’ digital transformation journey but also strengthens the DPG ecosystem by contributing potential new solutions to the DPG Registry. Beyond advocating for open, scalable solutions across the UN system, UNICC helps expand the adoption of DPGs where they’re needed most, ultimately accelerating digital cooperation efforts to achieve the SDGs.”, added Liv Marte Nordhaug, CEO, Digital Public Goods Alliance Secretariat.

Today the DPGA Secretariat, in coordination with twenty-four organisations, is launching the Global Open Source Policies & Practices Survey. Directed at governments and organizations, this survey aims to significantly improve understanding of the current landscape of open-source policies, principles, and frameworks among governments and organizations.

The DPGA is now accepting submissions for AI systems! This post provides a practical overview and detailed description of the requirements outlined in the DPG Standard that an AI system must meet to be recognized as a digital public good and listed on the DPG Registry.How we got here ?A digital public good (DPG) entails much more than simply being open software, open data, an open content collection, or an open AI system. DPGs are open-source solutions that must also be accessible, adaptable, and designed to do no harm. Therefore, to be recognised as a DPG, a solution must demonstrate adherence to the DPG Standard to ensure those important elements are embedded into the design of a digital solution and, by doing so, can facilitate more impactful and safe technology deployment. In 2023, recognising both the immense potential of AI for development as well as the risks associated with it, the DPGA Secretariat, in collaboration with UNICEF, convened a dedicated Community of Practice (CoP) on AI systems. This group was brought together to specifically examine how the DPG Standard may need to adapt to better determine what constitutes AI systems as a type of DPG and to explore the intersection between open and responsible AI. Alongside a set of recommendations from the CoP on AI systems, the DPGA Secretariat closely monitored and participated in relevant conversations that were also taking place. This included the OSI's Open Source AI Definition (OSAID), the Linux Foundation’s Model Openness Framework (MOF), and consultations with DPGA members actively working on AI, such as OpenFuture, Creative Commons, and the Open Knowledge Foundation.Following an open commenting period on GitHub, the DPG Standard Council carefully considered inputs surfaced throughout this process and, as part of a set of updates to the DPG Standard, introduced changes to strengthen the transparency and accountability of AI system DPGs while ensuring that they meet consistent requirements across all DPG categories.What's an AI system, anyway?Before diving into the specific updates, it’s valuable to provide an understanding of what is meant by “AI system,” as it has implications for the components that must be DPG Standard compliant. We recognise AI systems as machine-based systems designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments, or generate outputs, such as text, images, or sounds.This understanding aligns with OECD guidelines on AI (Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2019)In order to be recognised as a DPG status, AI systems must provide the following components, alongside the following requirements:

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