3 August، 2024
Participation of the College of Medicine – University of Mosul in UNESCO Consultation on Neurotechnology Ethics in the Arab Region
“At the gracious invitation of UNESCO, under the supervision of the UNESCO Regional Office in Egypt and Sudan and the UNESCO Regional Office for the Gulf States, both Dr. Rana Mumtaz Raouf and Dr. Yahya Qasim Al-Mashhadani participated online in the special meeting for the Arab region consultation on the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnologies, which took place in both online and in-person formats on 1/7/2024. This important event served as a platform to bring experts together to discuss and provide feedback on ethical guidelines for developing and using advanced neurotechnologies.
Neurotechnologies encompass a range of technologies designed to interact with the human nervous system. They have various applications, including brain-computer interfaces and neurorehabilitation (such as cochlear implants, neuroprosthetics, etc.). The ethical considerations surrounding these technologies are of the utmost importance, as ensuring that these innovations are used responsibly and for the public good is crucial.
The consultation aimed to gather diverse perspectives and insights from various experts, including doctors, researchers, legal experts, rehabilitation professionals, AI developers, and others. The key topics discussed were data security, user confidentiality, providing complete transparency and control over users’ data, and how neurotechnology algorithms use it.
This regional consultation marks the second phase in developing the world’s first global framework on the ethics of neurotechnologies. The first phase involved drafting the ethical guidelines, outlining the recommendation structure, fundamental values and principles, and proposed actions for member states.
Representing Iraq in this consultation were Dr. Rana Mumtaz Raouf and Dr. Yahya Qasim Al-Mashhadani from the College of Medicine/University of Mosul, Prof. Dr. Hassan Aziz Hassan from the College of Medicine/Al-Nahrain University, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aqeel Kareem Hatem from the College of Medicine/University of Baghdad.”
