About us

The CDI Foundation develops design standards that create human-centric and inclusive AI Assistants. We do this through promoting design patterns and best practices and by doing research, education and industry development.

We are guided by our core principles.

Our core principles

Open

We are an open community where all industry stakeholders can voice their opinions so that our standards can have the most impact.

Pragmatic

We are pragmatic in our approach and seek to make progress towards developing industry standards every day.

Transparent

We are transparent in everything that we do. We share freely through our public events.

Collaborative

We are collaborative and work with other stakeholders and institutions.

Inclusive

We are inclusive and strive to build a diverse community from across the industry.

Want to support The CDI Foundation?

Supporting The CDI Foundation helps to accelerate the adoption of human-centric, inclusive, and empathetic standards for designing conversational AI Assistants.

Created by The Conversation Design Institute

The CDI Foundation was created by The Conversation Design Institute, world’s leading training and certification institute for creating human-centric AI Assistants.

The Conversation Design Institute created the Foundation because it realized the industry needs a body that goes beyond commercial goals and seeks to develop industry standards that benefit the industry as a whole by working together.

How we work

The Foundation has a Board and an Advisory Circle

The Board‘s role is to ensure the Foundation’s effective operation and make decisions in the best interests of the Foundation and its stakeholders. 


The Advisory Circle is composed of Partners of the Foundation. Its role is to support the Foundation’s effective operation and the development of each of its activities. The Circle may be asked to set up subgroups to lead the development in the four key areas of our work – research, education, best practice and industry development.

The Advisory Circle operates by open, inclusive, authentic peer-led discussion.

What we do

Research

  • support collaborative research to uncover best practices and create design patterns

  • research emerging technologies and how they relate to the conversational AI industry

  • create new university partnerships to help bring academic research to market

Education

  • create educational programs to teach design patterns

  • support inclusive scholarships for those wishing to enter the industry, especially focused on underrepresented people and groups

Best Practice

  • develop maturity models that map out the proven design patterns and best practices per level of maturity in conversational AI

  • publish design patterns and use cases

Industry Development

  • create and continuously evolve the CDI Manifesto to align the industry around common goals

  • develop a community by organising events including organise the Beyond Boundaries Global festival

  • grow our Industry Fellowship scheme to engage with leaders and experts across the industry

  • build our programme of industry speaking engagements, workshops and bootcamps at leading venues

 

The CDI Foundation Board

Peter Thomas
Peter Thomas
CDI Foundation Chair
WhatsApp Image 2022-11-11 at 10.00
Hans Van Dam
CEO, CDI
Olaf Igesz
Olaf Igesz
Co-founder & COO, CDI
Ejieme Eromosele
Ejieme Eromosele
VP, Customer Growth, Quiq
Sarah Lorimer
Sarah Lorimer
Founder, Futurely Strategy
Lisa Talia Moretti
Lisa Talia Moretti
Digital Sociology | Tech Ethics I UX Research I Data Governance