A dragon boat race will be held as a demonstration sport at the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics, said Thomas Konietzko, president of the International Canoe Federation (ICF) recently.
Konietzko has credited the inclusion to collaborative efforts between the ICF and China Media Group (CMG), supported by the International Olympic Committee.
At a launch ceremony of CMG's gala celebrating Dragon Boat Festival held in Beijing on Thursday, Konietzko conveyed his best wishes to the Chinese people via video link and celebrated the global popularity of dragon boat race, as well as the upcoming ICF Dragon Boat World Cup and the first International Super Cup of Canoe and Kayak in China.
The ICF Dragon Boat World Cup is scheduled to take place in Zigui County, central China's Hubei Province in October. Zigui is renowned as the birthplace of Qu Yuan (about 340 BC-278 BC), a loyal statesman and a patriotic poet in Chu, which was a major state in the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC). The Dragon Boat Festival is a day to commemorate Qu Yuan. The first International Super Cup of Canoe and Kayak will be held in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, in October.
This year's CMG's dragon boat race will kick off in the city of Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu Province, during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which runs from June 8 to 10.
As a representative of Chinese culture, the dragon boat race serves as a traditional practice during the Dragon Boat Festival to honor the life and legacy of poet Qu Yuan. This festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar Chinese calendar.
Dragon boat race listed as demonstration sport at Paris Olympics
The newly-established World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) marks a major milestone in AI development and a significant step toward global AI governance, international delegates said on Friday.
Twenty-nine countries on Thursday signed an agreement in Shanghai on establishing WAICO, an independent intergovernmental international organization headquartered in Shanghai.
The organization aims to promote international cooperation and global governance on AI, ensuring that AI is beneficial, safe and fair, thereby promoting its healthy and orderly development to benefit all humanity.
"I think this organization reinforces the need for multilateral cooperation. So you have 29 countries that have come together. I think yesterday's developments underline the importance of the capacity-building that countries around the world are facing an AI divide. There are some countries that do not have the talent, the datasets, the computer infrastructure, the access to the right models, and therefore efforts such as these can help bridge the AI divide," said UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies Amandeep Singh Gill.
Alaa Abdulaal, chief of Digital Economy Intelligence at the Digital Cooperation Organization, also hailed the launch, saying that cooperation is vital to ensure that no country is structurally excluded from the evolving digital landscape.
"Any initiative that is targeted for opening dialogues and innovation and conversation between countries to make sure that everyone is participating in the digital economy is a huge milestone. Whenever we have cooperation, whenever we have different countries, different representation, making sure that no one is left outside AI, it is a huge achievement, definitely," said Abdulaal.
World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization marks milestone in AI development: int'l delegates
