The Hero Awards and Afghan Women Rising are developing the world's largest 'solution engine' for the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as announced during the Geneva plenary session. According to CIO John Toomey, each of the UN's 169 targets under the larger goals is being converted into prompts for AI bots, starting with OpenAI's GPTs, Gemini's Gems, and Claude Artifacts, and evolving into full-fledged AI assistants that can continuously update themselves in actionable workflows to achieve progress toward the goals.
Afghan Women Rising members are doing a large share of the work. These are young women in Afghanistan denied formal education because the Taliban-led government has made it illegal for them to attend school. They build the bots online and then hold in-person discussions to refine prompts and add the human element. 'Having these girls design the prompts allows them to sidestep the ban against schooling,' said Program Director Amy Chang. 'They get valuable experience building projects that will contribute to sustainability both in and outside of their own country for a long while, and prepare themselves for a time in which their talents will be vital for the country's future.'
The girls have been inspired by the writings of J. Kutcher, particularly her evocative use of garden plant growth as a metaphor for the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth of young women. When a protocol is completed, its creator becomes eligible for a Hero Award, requiring the protocol to suggest previously unknown strategies for advancing UN targets. Successful efforts are publicized on The Hero Awards website and in press releases.
Since the program was announced six months ago, individuals from other organizations in the Global South have requested involvement and will be included in future iterations. These include PARI (People's Archive of Rural India), devoted to underserved populations in rural India; Siku.org, a nonprofit serving First Nations of the Canadian Arctic and Greenland; Cybersmartafrica.org, a group of teachers and students in Senegal preserving local cultures and improving digital literacy; Terrastories, an open-source application for South American and Amazonian indigenous communities to map and share oral histories; and Winyama, an Australian indigenous group using cultural mapping to document Dreamtime stories, songlines, and historical land use.
June Hero Award winners include Tara Jensen, Maria Ortiz, Herman Matsui, and Wilhelmina Searles. The UN Goals and Targets can be found at https://sdgs.un.org/goals. For more information, visit The Hero Awards Substack or the Reddit community.
