The Antigua and Barbuda government will provide fifty annual scholarships to members of the Royal Police Force to earn Bachelor of Science degrees in the application of Artificial Intelligence to Criminology, Chief of Staff Ambassador Lionel Max Hurst announced this morning (Thursday) during the post cabinet press briefing.
According to Hurst, the initiative follows a presentation to cabinet by Professor Curtis Charles, Assistant Principal of the UWI Five Islands Campus, regarding the upcoming Second Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
“The cabinet decided yesterday that it will pursue artificial intelligence in crime fighting, and to do so effectively, they’ve turned to the University of the West Indies,” Hurst said.
The UWI Five Islands Campus aims to apply AI solutions to what it terms the “three Cs of governance”: Crime, Climate Change, and Non-Communicable Diseases. The university also plans to implement AI in fintech banking, sports management, and public health.
“We intend that every police officer, no matter the rank, has the necessary tools in the kit to pursue crime fighting utilizing this particular tool,” he stated.
The AI conference will precede the Organization of American States General Assembly scheduled for late June 2025 by two days.
