Episodes

  • Sian White, Dan Amias and Daniela Weber Introduce Elrha and UKHIH's new AI Newsletter
    Oct 26 2024
    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, Elrha, and NetHope, emphasizing their collaborative role in advancing humanitarian efforts. They also share insights from their AI learning journeys, key takeaways, and ongoing challenges in harnessing AI for humanitarian impact.
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    37 mins
  • Lindsey Moore from DevelopMetrics on their AI for Development Summit and on Funding for AI Research
    Oct 26 2024
    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 organizations and technology companies participating in technical working groups, the need for funding for critical humanitarian AI research and development and importantly the need for funding to bridge the digital divide and ensure diverse representation in AI models particularly for underrepresented communities, and touch on AI transparency, Signpost’s new AI Lab, UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub projects and other subjects.
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    29 mins
  • Karin Maasel and Doug Smith from Data Friendly Space on the Evolving Humanitarian AI Landscape
    Oct 25 2024
    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 sessions, Karin (DFS CEO) and Doug (DFS Chief of Staff) answer a broad range of questions covering their team’s work and new tools, the evolving humanitarian AI landscape and AI-powered tools being developed by other humanitarian initiatives, trusted data sources and open data sharing frameworks, and the importance of domain specific AI model training, human-centered design and responsible AI development as well as the need for greater cross-sector collaboration.
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Vanessa Parli on how Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI Evaluates Research Proposals
    Oct 3 2024
    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 HAI reviews and selects AI research projects to support based on their technical soundness, potential impact, ethical considerations, and alignment with HAI's goals and values. Vanessa emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, which fosters a holistic approach to AI development. She also discusses the role of ethics in AI development and the challenges of bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world applications, highlighting the importance of considering the potential impact of AI on society. This interview was recorded to provide humanitarian organizations, grantmakers and others with insights into how leading AI institutes handle research project cultivation and evaluation.
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    34 mins
  • Kate Behncken: How Microsoft Philanthropies Supports AI for Inclusion, Social Impact, and Innovation
    Sep 25 2024
    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, IOM, and the British Heart Foundation, highlighting how AI is being leveraged to address pressing global challenges. The conversation also explores the ethical challenges of AI, focusing on responsible AI development, balancing humanitarian principles with AI ethics, privacy, and security concerns, and emphasizing the importance of inclusivity in AI development to avoid marginalizing vulnerable communities. Tune in to learn how AI is shaping the future of humanitarian work and how Microsoft is driving social impact across the globe.
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    31 mins
  • Rolf Kleef on IATI, Open Data and the Integration of AI into Humanitarian Operations
    Aug 31 2024
    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 interview to discuss the International Aid Transparency Initiative and run through a list of questions for Humanitarian AI Today Live, the podcast’s new video channel. Rolf answers questions on the mapping of humanitarian AI initiatives, AI powered chatbots, how Signpost’s AI Lab aims to collaborate with humanitarian organizations, AI governance and how the humanitarian community should approach improving transparency and accountability around AI, AI learning goals, open data sharing in the AI age and other subjects of interest to staff from humanitarian organizations interested in humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence.
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    27 mins
  • Payal Dalal with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
    Jul 9 2024
    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 real-world challenges and drive social impact, discuss ways to ensure emergent technologies such as AI are inclusive and equitable, and examine how a participatory AI framework involving diverse voices and data in the development of AI tools can mitigate bias and maximize the positive potential of these tools to close existing inequities. They also discussed the Center’s Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge, a global call for AI solutions to accelerate inclusion and economic empowerment. In partnership with data.org, the Challenge is accepting submissions through July 18, 2024. Link to the application: https://data.org/initiatives/challenges/artificial-intelligence-to-accelerate-inclusion-challenge/ Aleks Berditchevskaia is the Principal Researcher working at Nesta's Centre for Collective Intelligence Design which creates new ways for communities to use technology to harness their ideas and insights, act on the problems that matter and create the futures they want. Their work on humanitarian AI is focused on collective crisis intelligence technologies. These are tools that combine localized collective intelligence from affected communities and frontline responders, and AI. Since 2021, they have pioneered participatory AI methodologies that bring affected communities and frontline responders into the designing, testing and oversight of AI systems. Their research is funded by a grant from the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH). Keep an eye out for a forthcoming Humanitarian AI Today episode that will dive deeper into Aleks' work on participatory AI and the responsible deployment of humanitarian AI technologies.
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    32 mins
  • Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Schroeder on Meta's Llama Impact Grants Program
    Jun 30 2024
    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 accessibility and making data AI ready, data collection and standardization initiatives geared for humanitarian actors, the impact of AI on humanitarian operations, localization, and how humanitarian actors can collaborate around advancing humanitarian AI. 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 (GovLab) at New York University and The DataTank base in Brussels. He focuses on using advances in science and technology, including data and artificial intelligence, to improve decision-making and problem-solving. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the open-access journal Data & Policy and has served as a member of several expert groups on data and technology, including the High-Level Expert Group to the European Commission on Business-to-Government Data Sharing and the Expert Group to Eurostat on using Private Sector data for Official Statistics. Dr. Verhulst has been recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential Academics in Digital Government globally. He has published extensively on these topics, including several books, and has been invited to speak at international conferences, including TED and the UN World Data Forum. He is asked regularly to provide counsel on data stewardship to a variety of public and private organizations. Dr. Andrew Schroeder is the Vice President of Research and Analysis for Direct Relief. He leads Direct Relief’s work in data science, GIS, and humanitarian innovation. He has worked in a consulting and advisory capacity for the World Bank, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and World Food Programme (WFP), as well as being a member of the health data experts committee for Meta (formerly Facebook). Dr. Schroeder is the co-founder, along with colleagues at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, of CrisisReady, a research and response platform for translating private data into public good for disasters and health emergencies. He is also the co-founder and former Board President of the global nonprofit WeRobotics.org, which builds local capacity in robotics applications for humanitarian aid, development, and global health in nearly 40 countries around the world. Andrew earned his Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University and his Masters of Public Policy (MPP) and certification in Science, Technology and Public Policy (STPP) from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
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    53 mins