Alibaba Cloud's AI tools encourage sustainability and inclusivity at Asian Games
In addition to digital solutions, artificial intelligence (AI) tools have been deployed at the Asian Games and the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, in a measure towards encouraging sustainability and inclusivity.
Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has launched a sustainable lifestyle web application that helps participants at the Asian Games adopt low-carbon behaviours and reduce their carbon footprint through digital engagement.
The interactive web application rewards athletes, journalists and staff members running the Asian Games with carbon points for making eco-friendly lifestyle choices.
Across the Asian Games villages, participants can scan a QR code to record their low-carbon activities in the web application, ranging from opting out of using plastic bags at supermarkets, to taking a photo of their clean plates at the dining hall in an effort to reduce food waste.
Participants can accumulate the carbon points obtained from low-carbon activities and redeem them for limited-edition Asian Games-themed pins and low-carbon products.
“Through the innovative sustainable lifestyle web application, we want to encourage participants of the Asian Games to be more sustainable by recording their daily eco-friendly choices and helping them see the tangible impact of their choices,” said William Xiong, vice president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
Alibaba Cloud tapped its AI-powered carbon management tool "Energy Expert" to measure and optimise the carbon footprint in the manufacturing of the Hangzhou Asian Games’ mascots.
For example, Congcong, one of the three mascots, has a cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of 1.59kg carbon dioxide equivalent, with the emission from three major sources, including electricity use, packaging and raw materials.
Energy Expert also provides carbon footprint measurement, carbon neutrality calculation and certification services for the pin exchange centre and low-carbon stores with energy-saving installations in one of the Asian Games villages.
"The technology behind Energy Expert is powered by AI; not only for calculating the carbon footprint, but also for providing actionable optimisation recommendations, such as the best areas for increasing the use of renewable energy, and reducing power consumption at different times," Xiong said.
To foster inclusivity at the Asian Para Games to be held between October 22 to 28, Alibaba Cloud introduced its digital avatar, Xiaomo, serving as a sign language interpreter for individuals with hearing impairments.
The digital avatar was integrated into a mini-app on the payment platform Alipay to support two-way translation between sign language and Chinese spoken language.
Users can input voice messages, which the virtual character will translate into sign language for hearing impaired individuals. Conversely, the mini-app can interpret sign language into spoken language.
Xiaomo was also incorporated into the news channel of the Asian Games to increase accessibility of its announcements.
"This innovation aims to make the Asian Para Games more inclusive and accessible to those with hearing loss," said Matt Zhang, algorithm engineer at Alibaba Cloud.
"For the Hangzhou Asian Games, we managed to build a Chinese sign language translation dataset that contains 25,000 signs, so we can build sign language videos for different contexts."
Xiaomo currently can support only Chinese people, but Zhang said the digital avatar would be developed to support foreigners in the future.
