This week, world leaders and international organizations gathered for the 2024 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Meta showcased its commitment to helping accelerate the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at UNGA. The company emphasized the significant role technology can play in solving some of the world’s most pressing issues.

Meta highlighted open source AI as a potential equalizer, providing access to advanced models globally. The company announced recipients of the inaugural Llama Impact Grants and Llama Impact Innovation Awards. Additionally, Meta revealed four collaborations demonstrating how open source AI is embraced by the global community for social progress through humanitarian programs. These collaborations include partnerships with UNESCO, the US State Department, Economist Impact, and Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab.

On Monday, Meta presented a translation interface built on its No Language Left Behind (NLLB) AI model at an event with UNESCO and Hugging Face. The model supports high-quality translation in 200 languages, including marginalized languages like Asturian, Luganda, Maori, and Urdu. UNESCO emphasized the interface's role in promoting linguistic diversity during its announcement.

Meta also joined the Partnership for Global Inclusivity in AI with the US State Department and other industry voices. This partnership aims to promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems that address global societal challenges. It continues Meta's efforts to expand open-source AI innovation across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Economist Impact collaborated with Meta on a white paper assessing the benefits of open source AI. The report highlights open source AI's potential to spur innovation and increase transparency but emphasizes that high-quality data is essential for these models to fulfill their potential.

On October 19th, Meta will host its second Community Forum on Generative AI in partnership with Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab. This year’s forum will include participants from India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and South Africa to discuss governing principles of AI agents and chatbots.

Meta also announced awardees of its 2023 Llama Impact Grants and Llama Impact Innovation Awards this week. The grants program supports innovative use cases of Llama 2 and Llama 3 models addressing social issues such as education and environmental advice. Three leading use cases were identified: Wadhwani AI for improving English language learning in India’s public schools; Digital Green for providing agricultural advice to small-scale farmers; Dana Farber for matching cancer patients to clinical trials.

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