He is the new president of the Benelux Vereniging voor Kunstmatige Intelligentie (BNVKI), a fusion of the Belgian AI association BAAI, established by VUB emeritus professor Luc Steels in the early 1980s, and the Dutch NVKI.
The BNVKI and its sister organisations in other EU countries make up the European Association for AI, which aims to spotlight education, research and the application of AI in Europe. Each year it highlights research results and applications at the Benelux AI Conference, which is now in its 35th edition.
Lenaerts has also been appointed by the Brussels region as an expert in the Global Partnership on AI, which brings together Belgium’s governments and advises on AI-related topics.
“I’m taking on that task with Professor Rob Heyman of VUB’s SMIT research group, who has been appointed to the position by Flanders,” says Lenaerts. “We will sit on the Responsible AI working group which, as an advisory body, deals with issues including the importance of gender and equality in AI, the impact of AI on sustainability, the issue of language models and the monitoring of public policy in this regard.”
