Humanitarian AI Today

In this short Humanitarian AI Today podcast episode Valentine Pistorozzi speaks with Brent Phillips about Boldcode, new projects in the pipeline, and changes in the way that AI applications are being built. Brent and Valentine speak in detail about Boldcode’s https://reporterai.org/ project and about technical aspects of humanitarian AI applications. This interview was recorded as a test in Novemb...

Luke Marsden, CEO of HelixML, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today podcast producer Brent Phillips about how generative AI has evolved since early language models like BERT were introduced and applications like ChatGPT captured widespread popular interest in artificial intelligence, including across the humanitarian community. Luke traces advances in large language models and shares his views on wher...

Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Schroeder speak with Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI Today podcast producer, about the New Commons Challenge (https://newcommons.ai/) focusing advancing AI for public good through data commons. Dr. Stefaan G. Verhulst is an expert in using data and technology for social impact. He is the Co-Founder of several research organizations including the Governance Laboratory (G...

On this episode of Humanitarian AI Today, Ali Al Mokdad, a seasoned humanitarian leader with extensive field and headquarters experience, offers a very personal perspective on the evolving landscape of humanitarian aid, particularly in the context of the current and hugely destructive aid funding crisis. Brant Phillips, producer of the podcast, and Ali speak in depth about Ali’s writing and analys...

Suzy Madigan, Founder of The Machine Race and Senior Humanitarian Advisor at CARE International, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today podcast Producer, Brent Phillips, about her blog series on AI and society. In this bite-sized episode, they chat through the wide range of ideas explored in The Machine Race blog — from how AI intersects with politics, culture, and philosophy, to its social impact and...

Kai Hopkins, Head of Research Initiatives with Elrha, summarizes hard dilemmas facing the humanitarian and development sectors following massive cuts in government funding. Offering takeaways from Humanitarian Networking and Partnerships Week in Geneva and discussions with other attendees, Kai and Brent discuss four key questions with no easy answers that as a sector we need to consider in respons...

Payal Dalal, Executive Vice President of Global Programs at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and Deval Sanghavi, Co-founder and Partner at Dasra, speak with Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher, Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design, about the Center’s Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge, a global call for AI solutions to accelerate inclusion and e...

The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today bring panelists together to discuss the subject of AI governance in connection with humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence. Representing the humanitarian, academic, regulatory and private sectors, Eugenia Olliaro, former Responsible Data for Children Lead at UNICEF, Stefaan Verhulst, Co-founder of NYU’s GovL...

The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today have brought together a panel to discuss the subject of humanitarian principles with an emphasis on discussing the principles in connection with uses of artificial intelligence in humanitarian action. Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher, Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design; Marc DuBois, Independent Res...

The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today have brought together a panel to critically assess evidence from real-world AI use cases and their impact on humanitarian action, while exploring approaches to learning and evidence-building. In this episode, Zineb Bhaby, AI Lead at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Zita Lengyel-Wang, Matching Manager at Tech to the Re...

Abdallah El Ali, a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher with a background in cognitive science discusses trustworthy AI, explainability and transparency with Ahmad Tafti from the University of Pittsburgh and Humanitarian AI Today’s Producer, Brent Phillips. Dr. Abdallah El Ali, a Research Scientist at the Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands (Centrum Wi...

In this episode, the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today bring panelists together to critically examine the colonial approach in the rollout of AI applications, including the extraction of data from vulnerable groups without adequate representation or input. Shaza Alrihawi, Researcher, Human Rights Advocate, and Consultant specializing in working with refugees...

The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today bring panelists together to discuss transparency and strategies for improving transparency and accountability in AI implementations. Michael Hind, Distinguished Research Staff Member at IBM Research; Shadrock Roberts, Director of Global Data Protection & Privacy at Mercy Corps; Scott Turnbull, Chief Technology Officer at...

Lindsey Moore, Founder and CEO of DevelopMetrics, discusses her team’s upcoming AI for Development Summit and provides an update on DevelopMetric’s current work helping humanitarian organizations develop and test AI applications. Lindsey and Humanitarian AI Today podcast producer, Brent Phillips, touch on advancements in AI and the state of humanitarian AI, the importance of humanitarian organizat...

Sian White, Director of the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub; Dan Amias, Senior Innovation Learning Advisor at Elrha; and Daniela Weber, Director of NetHope’s Center for the Digital Nonprofit, discuss the growing importance of AI in the humanitarian sector and introduce Elrha and UKHIH’s new AI newsletter. Joining Brent Phillips of Humanitarian AI Today, they highlight recent AI initiatives by UKHIH...

Karin Maasel and Doug Smith from Data Friendly Space update listeners on GANNET, a collaborative, generative AI-powered tool that DFS developed in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help humanitarian organizations access, extract, and visualize information to boost the timeliness, effectiveness, and accuracy of humanitarian responses and anticipatory action. Over three recording session...

Vanessa Parli, Director of Research Programs at Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), speaks with Allison Cohen, Senior Applied AI Project Manager at Mila. This episode was recorded for both the Humanitarian AI Today podcast and The World We Are Building podcast, which seek to broaden the conversation around artificial intelligence. Vanessa and Allison discuss how...

In this episode of Humanitarian AI Today, Sarah Spencer, a consultant for the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub, interviews Kate Behncken, Corporate VP and Global Head of Microsoft Philanthropies. Kate discusses how Microsoft Philanthropies is harnessing AI to drive digital inclusion and empower nonprofits and communities worldwide. She shares details on her team’s work with organizations like UNICEF...

Rolf Kleef, former CTO and Senior IATI Consultant with Data4Development, shares his views on Signpost’s new AI Lab and on the integration of AI into humanitarian operations with Humanitarian AI Today’s podcast producer Brent Phillips. Rolf specializes in helping civil society initiatives with online collaboration, transparency, open data sharing, algorithms, and ethical AI. Brent and Rolf use the...

Payal Dalal, Executive Vice President of Global Programs at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth (the Center), speaks with Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher, Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design, about the Center’s data science work and commitment to advancing sustainable economic growth. Payal and Aleks look at real-life applications of data science and AI to address re...

Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Schroeder speak with Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI Today podcast producer, about Meta’s Lama Impact Grants program supporting applications of artificial intelligence for social good and a recent workshop that Meta organized for their 2024 Lama Impact Grant finalists. Stefaan, Andrew and Brent also discuss collective intelligence, large language models, data accessibil...

Lindsey Moore, CEO and Founder of DevelopMetrics, speaks with Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI Today podcast Producer, about DevelopMetrics’ work helping humanitarian organizations experiment with large language models. Lindsey and Brent discuss humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence, domain specificity, large language models, model training, testing and fine tuning, data structuring,...

Roberto Vila-Sexto, Country Director for Ukraine with the Norwegian Refugee Council, speaks with Jakob Harbo, Country Manager for Ukraine with the Danish Red Cross. Joined by Brent Phillips, Roberto and Jakob discuss their work and roles, the scale and severity of conditions in Ukraine this Winter, humanitarian needs and operations, risks and complications humanitarian actors face in Ukraine, atta...

Shadrock Roberts, Director of Global Data Protection, Privacy, and Ethical AI at Mercy Corps, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today guest host, Nasim Motalebi, an Information Scientist, Researcher and co-author of a Digital Humanitarian Network / UN OCHA supported paper on “Generative AI for Humanitarians”, about data protection and privacy in the AI age and about how humanitarian organizations are ex...

André Heller Pérache, Director of the International Rescue Committee’s Signpost project speaks with Isabella Loaiza, a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT Sloan School Of Management and former Research Assistant at MIT Media Lab. Isabella and André discuss Signpost’s work responding to the informational needs of people facing crises, the program’s growth plans and how Signpost is approaching experimenti...