Regional dialogue on responsible AI governance
A multi-stakeholder symposium bringing together ministry representatives, human rights ombudsmen, algorithmic auditors, and grassroots monitors to deliberate cross-border public-interest AI safety.
09:00 – 17:30 IST / Hybrid
BMICH & Virtual Livestream
12 Asian Nations Represented
With Regional Policy Alliances
Read the Colombo Consensus & Session Summaries
Access the official multi-stakeholder outcome document detailing 14 policy recommendations for public sector procurement, algorithmic oversight, and linguistic equity.
Three days of critical inquiry and cross-sector consensus
Opening Keynote: Institutional Capacity vs. Vendor Dominance in the Global South
Examining how unequal bargaining power between sovereign public procurement agencies and multinational foundational model providers leads to intellectual property lock-in, data sovereignty loss, and opaque decision matrices.
Auditing Automated Decision-Making in Public Welfare Delivery
Case studies from India’s biometric rationing algorithms and Sri Lanka’s Aswesuma social protection portal, scrutinizing exclusion errors and due-process redress bottlenecks.
Drafting Standardized Public AI Procurement Clauses
Hands-on drafting workshop defining model contract provisions for independent third-party code review, training data lineage disclosure, and liability apportionment for public agencies.
The 2026 Colombo Communiqué: Core Commitments
The dialogue concluded with the adoption of a joint declaration laying out five operational commitments for regional institutions procuring or regulating artificial intelligence:
Citizens denied public benefits by automated triage must receive actionable, plain-language explanations and a guaranteed human appeal route within 14 business days.
Government contracts for high-stakes public safety and welfare software must ensure audit access for certified domestic research bodies.
All state-funded conversational interfaces must match English-language accuracy tolerances across local official languages before general deployment.
Access verbatim transcripts, plenary recordings, and slide decks from all 14 symposium sessions.