Agreement establishes co-badged certification for parliamentarians and government officials, delivered through xDigita’s centres in the United States, Singapore and Pakistan
The International Parliamentarians’ Congress (IPC) and xDigita, Inc. today signed a three-year exclusive partnership and revenue sharing agreement to train legislators, parliamentary committees and government officials in the governance and oversight of artificial intelligence.
The agreement was signed in Islamabad by Ms Sitara Ayaz, Secretary General of the International Parliamentarians’ Congress, and Mr Hassan A. Hameed, President and Founder of xDigita, Inc.
Under the agreement, IPC sets the quality standard that a programme must meet before its mark may appear on a certificate, nominates assessors who complete xDigita’s certification pathway, and reviews delivery against that standard. xDigita provides the curriculum, the instruments, the facilitation and the assessment. The agreement runs for three years on an exclusive basis and carries a right of first refusal.
Why the two organisations have partnered
Governments are procuring and deploying artificial intelligence faster than the institutions that must answer for it can scrutinise it. Decisions on health, climate, food security, trade and the conduct of elections increasingly rest on systems that few legislators have a method for interrogating. The partnership is intended to close that gap by equipping members and officials with a shared method, a set of working instruments, and a credential that means something because it is assessed.
Programmes are organised in four tiers: foundation courses for members and staff; portfolio laboratories taught on a nation’s own legislation and data; institutional engagements that assess and build capability inside a parliament or ministry; and joint cohorts that place regulators and legislators in the same room on an instrument already before the House. Eleven laboratories span five portfolios — climate, health, food and agriculture, supply chain and trade, and election integrity.
Statements
“Parliaments across our membership are being asked to legislate on, and to scrutinise, systems they have had no means of examining. This partnership gives our members a method and a standard rather than a seminar. The Congress will set that standard and will hold it, and the certificate will carry our mark only where the work has been assessed.”
— Ms Sitara Ayaz, Secretary General, International Parliamentarians’ Congress
“The capability gap in AI oversight is not technical. It is a question of what an institution knows to ask, and what evidence it knows to demand before it signs. The Congress convenes the people who have to ask those questions, and that is why this is the right partnership. Our commitment is that every programme is taught on the host nation’s own material, and that the credential is earned rather than attended.”
— Mr Hassan A. Hameed, President and Founder, xDigita, Inc.
Next steps
The first programmes are being scheduled with member parliaments and portfolio ministries, with the certification pathway for IPC-nominated assessors opening alongside them. xDigita is concurrently building a platform that will make the four instruments available to institutions directly, with data held in the region each institution nominates.
About xDigita
xDigita trains legislators, committee staff and ministry teams to use artificial intelligence in the work they already do — drafting, scrutiny, oversight and budget — and provides four instruments that allow them to continue after the session ends: a clause-level screening tool for draft legislation, an evidence desk that converts submissions into a committee brief, a readiness index that scores an institution against named evidence, and a policy sandbox that tests where a decision is fragile. xDigita, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, United States, with a centre of excellence in Singapore and its delivery subsidiary, xDigita Academy (Private) Limited, in Islamabad. xDigita is an independent training and technology provider: it sells no platform on behalf of others, represents no technology vendor, and accepts no commission from any supplier whose products are discussed in its programmes.