The year 2021 was very productive for MPAI. In January it started with a Call for Technologies on AI Framework and ended in December with 5standards approved and 7 projects in the pipeline.

How was that possible? Simple: intense collaborative work.

OK, but exactly how?

So far MPAI has not held physical meetings. MPAI does all current work online in 1, 2 or 3 one-hour sessions a day in the 13-18 UTC time frame. Purpose of this post is to describe how an MPAI work week unfolds. All times are UTC. All meetings last 1 hour.

Monday @15 – Mixed-reality Collaborative Spaces (MCS) is a project finalising the MCS Use Cases and Functional Requirements document. The use cases considered are “Avatar-Based Videoconference” and “Virtual eLearning” where avatars with levels of similarity with the person they represent hold meetings or assist to lectures. Extension of avatars to volumetric video is being considered. To know more, visit mcs.mpai.community.

Monday @16 – Governance of the MPAI Ecosystem (GME) is the name of an MPAI standard developed, approved and published by MPAI. It envisages the establishment of the MPAI Store, a non-profit commercial organisation whose role is to receive implementations of MPAI standards, verify they are secure, test that they are conforming with MPAI specifications, possibly collect the results proving that the implementation is reliable, robust, replicable and fair – attributes that MPAI labels as Performance – and post the implementation on the MPAI Store web site for users to download. MPAI is moving to the implementation of the MPAI Store. To know more, visit gme.mpai.community.

Monday @17 – AI Framework (AIF) is the name of an MPAI standard developed, approved and published by MPAI. MPAI is now developing a software implementation of the standard. To know more, visit aif.mpai.community.

Tuesday @14 – Multimodal Conversation (MMC) is the name of an MPAI standard developed, approved, and published by MPAI. MPAI is now developing software implementations of the four MPAI-MMC use cases, conformance testing and performance assessment and extending the current V1 specification to support more use cases. To know more, visit mmc.mpai.community.

Tuesday @16 – Context-based Audio Enhancement is the name of an MPAI standard developed, approved, and published by MPAI. MPAI is now developing software implementations of the four MPAI-MMC use cases, conformance testing and performance assessment and extending the current V1 specification to support more use cases. To know more, visit cae.mpai.community.

Wednesday @13 – Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) is a project finalising the CAV Use Cases and Functional Requirements document. The MPAI CAV is composed of 4 technology-laden subsystems. To know more, visit cav.mpai.community.

Wednesday @15 – AI-Enhanced Video Coding (EVC) is a project investigating the enhancement or replacement of existing video coding tools in the MPEG-5 EVC codec with AI tools. When MPAI will reach an improvement of 25%, a Call for Technologies will be issued. To know more, visit evc.mpai.community. On alternate week, the session is taken by End-to-End Video Coding (EEV), a project addressing video coding without the constraint of traditional video coding architectures. To know more, visit eev.mpai.community.

Wednesday @16 – Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (CUI) is the name of an MPAI standard developed, approved, and published by MPAI. As all 4 components of an MPAI standard – technical specification, reference software, conformance testing and performance assessment have been published, the group is preparing for a new version of the standard that includes additional risks to seismic and cyber.

Thursday @14 – Server-based Predictive Multiplayer Gaming (SPG) is a project completing the validation of the SPG model. Once the validation is completed, it will finalise the SPG Use Cases and Functional Requirements. To know more, visit spg.mpai.community.

In addition to these technical meeting sessions, MPAI holds a General Assembly to discuss and ratify any proposed results from the technical groups.

The Board of Directors typically meets twice between two General Assemblies. Two advisory groups hold meetings:

Thursday @15 – Communication Advisory Committee manages the manifold MPAI communication activities. Some of them are press releases, newsletter, online presentations and social media.

Friday @15 – Industry and Standards Advisory Committee manages the relationships of MPAI with all external entities that are relevant for MPAI activities.

A lot has been happening in MPAI, and a lot is now happening so that a lot can happen next outside MPAI.