Laurea enhances its competence in Artificial Intelligence and Ethics ─ Z-Inspection® Initiative

Laurea University of Applied Sciences has taken a significant step in enhancing its expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethics by affiliating with the Z-Inspection® Initiative. Through its Digital Living Labs, Laurea UAS will now utilise the Z-Inspection® process to evaluate the trustworthiness of real-world AI systems and applications. 

Z-Inspection® is a holistic process used to assess the trustworthiness of AI-based technologies at different stages of the AI lifecycle. It focuses, in particular, on the identification and discussion of ethical issues and tensions through the elaboration of socio-technical scenarios as part of the co-design process. It applies the European Union's High-Level Expert Group's (EU HLEG) guidelines for trustworthy AI.

The Z-Inspection® process is distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons (Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike CC BY-NC-SA) license. Z-Inspection® is listed in the new OECD Catalogue of AI Tools & Metrics. 

Laurea is also a consortium member of the HORIZON Europe–funded MANOLO project, where Z-inspection® is applied.  MANOLO aims to deliver a complete stack of trustworthy algorithms and tools to help AI systems reach better efficiency and seamless optimisation in their operations, resources and data required to train, deploy and run high-quality and lighter AI models in centralised and cloud-edge distributed environments.

Laurea's affiliation with the Z-Inspection® Initiative strengthens its AI governance and ethics expertise. Laurea UAS is now part of an ecosystem of high-level international and interdisciplinary experts in the Z-inspection® process, offering services regarding AI trustworthiness evaluation and validation. 

For further information and collaboration, please get in touch with the following:

• Sari Sarlio-Siintola (AI Ethics Researcher, MANOLO)
• Paulinus Ofem (Laurea Project Manager, MANOLO)

More information: