UPDATE: after our campaign launched, the CEO from the group Data for Black Lives released a powerful statement about her decision to boycott the event. You can read the statement here: https://d4bl.org/dispatch/90-no-humans-involved 

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The Saudi Arabian government has just sentenced a young mother of two to 34 years in prison.

Her crime? Tweeting support for reform and the freedom of detained activists.

Now Salma Al-Shehab could spend the next 3 decades in prison for these tweets — but we have a chance to help her.

In two weeks Saudi will host the Global AI Summit, and dozens of prominent technologists will be speaking at the event. If they join our call for Salma’s release and threaten to boycott the event, it could force the Kingdom to rethink this outrageous ruling against Salma.

Tell speakers of the AI Summit: Free Salma or boycott the event.

Salma, a dental hygienist and a PhD student living in the UK, was arrested in Saudi Arabia last year while on holiday. She was placed in solitary confinement for 285 days, and subjected to lengthy interrogations without legal representation. Salma is a Shia muslim — a minority group in Saudi that faces immense repression.

The charges against Salma come under the kingdom’s draconian Counter-Terrorism and Anti-Cyber Crime laws which criminalize the rights to freedom of expression.

But Salma’s case is subject to appeal in the Supreme Court, which means if we can put enough pressure on Saudi Arabia, we could see Salma freed.

Saudi Arabia cares deeply about the technology industry and seeks to be a leader in AI. Even just the threat of the world’s top AI technologists boycotting the event could send shockwaves across the royal palaces.

Add your name now and share this widely — let’s create a tidal wave of pressure to free Salma and others like her.

List of speakers at Saudi Arabia's Global AI Summit September 13-15 2022: 

Nadhmi A. Al-Nasr, CEO of NEOM
Abby Seneor, CTO, Citibeats
Kent Larson, Director of Science MIT

Anima Anandkumar, Professor and senior director of AI research - Caltech and nvidia

Andrei Telenkov, CEO, NtechLab

Amin Nasser, President and chief executive officer of Saudi Aramco 

Baiju Devani, Head of AIML and Advanced Analytics, TD Bank group 

Betsy Greytok, Vice President, Ethics and Policy, IBM

Claire Matuka, Data Scientist, Swiss Cognitive Global AIL Ambassador 

Constanza Gomez Mont, Founder and Principal, C Minds; AI for Climate Initiative 

Daniel Otzoy, Digital health Technical Advisor, John Snow Inc. 

Dr. Ahmed El Adl, Founder and Chief Digital Twinning Officer, Cognitive Digital Twin

Dr. Badr AlBadr, CEO Mohammand Bin Salman Foundation Misk 

Dr. Bedour Alrayes, Vice President Human Capability Development Program Vision 2030 

Dr. Bonnie Clipper, Managing Director Innovation Advantage

Dr. Carl Benedikt Frey, Founding Director, Future of Work Program, Oxford Martin School, Oxford University 

Carole Nakhle, CEO, Crystol Energy 

Dr. Danny Ruta, AI Clinical Lead, Guy’s Cancer Centre, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Honorary Senior Lecturer, King’s College London

Dr. Eva-Marie Muller-Stuler, Partner Data and AI, Ernst & Young 

Dr. Hans-Paul Buerkner, Managing Director and Global Chair, Emeritus Boston Consulting Group

Dr. Hatim Abdulhussein, National Clinical Lead, AI and Digital Medical Workforce, Directorate of Innovation, Digital and Transformation 

Dr. Heidi Sampang, Managing Director, Philippines, Flying Labs Company 

Dr. Ing. Konstantinos Karachalios, Managing Director, IEEE, Standards Association 

Dr. Junaid Baja, Chief Medical Scientist, Microsoft Research 

Dr. Kamran Khan, Founder and CEO, BlueDot 

Dr. Loubna Bouarfa, Founder and CEO, OKRA.ai 

Dr. Merritt Moore, Quantum Physicist and Professional Ballet Dancer, Harvard Artlab 

Dr. Mohammed Alhamid, Director, Center of Healthcare Intelligence, KFSH&RC

Dr. Nadin Alameh, CEO and President, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) 

Dr. Ruchi Saxena, Founder-Director, Caerobotics 

Dr. Sebastian Thrun, Founder, CEO, Udacity, Kitty Hawk

Dr. Sridhar Muppidi, CTO, IBM Security Global Company 

Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi, Professor and Chair Department, Electrical and Computer Engineering - The George Washington University 

Dr. Valérie Morignat, CEO, Intelligent Story 

Dr. Yo Sik Kang, President, Seoul Digital Foundation

Eldrid Jordaan, CEO, Govchat.org 

Elizabeth M. Adams, CEO EMA Advisory Services 

Eng. Lim Goh, PhD, SVP, and CTO, AI HPE

Eric Gundersen, Founding CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mapbox 

Essa Mohamedali, Co-founder, Tanzania AI Lab & Community 

Fabio Duarte, Principal Research Scientist, MIT

Francois Candelon, Managing Director and Senior Partner, BCG Henderson Institute - Global Director, Boston Consulting Group
Helen Kontozopoulos, Co-founder, ODAIA
Hermann Ney, Director, AppTek

Hiroshi Ishiguro, Professor of Osaka University and Visiting Director, ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories

Jason Roos, Chief Information Officer, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology

Jennifer LaPlante, Executive Director, DeepSense

Jihie Kim, Professor, Dongguk University 

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)

Kate Darling, AI Researcher, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab

Kevin Knight, Chief Scientist, Threeven Labs Company

Lucía Gallardo, Founder & CEO, Emerge

Marc Rotenberg, President and Founder, Center for AI and Digital Policy

Maria Luciana Axente, Senior Researcher, University of Cambridge

Mark Coeckelbergh, Professor of Philosophy, Vice Dean, University of Vienna

Mark Minevich, President, Co-Chair AI, Going Global Ventures, Planet Alliance

Marloes Pomp, International Partnerships ELSA Labs, Netherlands AI Coalition

Mei Lin Fung, Chair and Co-founder, People Centered Internet

Nazareen Ebrahim, Lead AI Ethics Practitioner, Socially Acceptable

Nicolas Miailhe, President and Co-Founder, The Future Society

Osama Alswailem, MD, CIO, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Canter

Phil Mennie, Partner, PwC Middle East

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber, Director, AI Initiative, KAUST,

Scientific Director, Swiss AI Lab IDSIA

Adj. Professor of AI, USI, Switzerland

Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, NNAISENSE

Prof. Jürg Luterbacher, Director, Science & Innovation and Chief Scientist, World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Prof. Sultan Haider, Founder and Global Head, Innovation Think Tank Siemens Healthineers

Prof. Tony Chan, President, KAUST

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton

Professor Philip H. S. Torr, Fellow, St Catherine’s College; Director, International Multimodal Communication Centre (IMCC); Founder Oxsight, AIstetic, Universit

Rajeev Misra, CEO Softbank Investment Advisers 

Richard Mikhael, President Middle East and Africa, IDEMIA

Roya Mahboob, Founder and CEO, Digital Citizen Fund

Rudolph Lohmeyer, Partner, Kearney Head, National Transformations Institute Global Business Policy Council

Dr. Seth Dobrin, Chief AI Officer, IBM

Shweta Khushu, Engineering Manager, Skyspecs Inc. 

Sougwen Chung, Artist, Researcher, Founder and Artistic Director, Scilicet

Stewart Room, Global Cyber Security and Data Protection Leader, DWF LLP

Țară Chklovski, Founder and CEO, Technovation

Thierry De Vulpilliéres, CEO, EvidenceB

Topher White, Founder and Chair, Rainforest Connection 

Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, Founder, Rise Networks 

Yeshimabeit Milner, CEO, Data for Black Lives

Anna Patterson, Managing Partner, Gradient Ventures, Vice President of engineering - Google

Ahsan Baig, CIO & CTO, Alameda Contra-Costa Transit 

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