Jessie Pechmann on AI, Satellite Imagery, Transparency, and Building Damage Assessments
Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In daily five-minute flashpods we pass the mic to humanitarian experts and technology pioneers, to hear about new projects, events, and perspectives on topics of importance to the humanitarian community.
In this flashpod, Jessie Pechmann, Humanitarian GIS and Data Protection Lead with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today producer Brent Phillips about satellite imaging, GIS, and the uses of AI in assessing building damage. They touch on how different AI models and methods can produce wildly different results for the same area, highlighting the need for transparency and better validation practices, including humans in the loop providing local knowledge and oversight. They also discuss the importance of "data commons," the open, shared data resources that humanitarian organizations rely on, and the challenges of supporting them amid a shift away from traditional government funding, which risks data becoming "siloed" as funding moves toward philanthropic or paid-for services.
Substack notes: https://humanitarianaitoday.substack.com/p/jessie-pechmann-from-humanitarian
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Yuriy Boyechko on Hope for Ukraine’s New Mobile App and Digital Inclusion
Yuriy Boyechko, Founder and CEO of Hope for Ukraine, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today guest host Emrys Schoemaker, Senior Director of Policy and Advisory with Caribou Digital. They discuss Hope for Ukraine’s work, humanitarian needs in Ukraine this Winter and the organization’s new mobile app (Nadiya) which helps connect individuals and families affected by the war with essential food supplies, education services, and housing resources. They also discuss ways of integrating applications of AI into the app and use the opportunity to discuss digital inclusion, digital identity and challenges associated with assessing needs, authenticating aid recipients and aid suppliers, and broader challenges associated with digital security.
Episode notes: https://humanitarianaitoday.medium.com/yuriy-boyechko-on-hope-for-ukraines-new-mobile-app-nadiya-1b1ed5deb923
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Olivier Mills from Baobab Tech on the Need for Deeper Technical Collaboration on Humanitarian AI
Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In daily five-minute flashpods we pass the mic to humanitarian experts and technology pioneers, to hear about new projects, events, and perspectives on topics of importance to the humanitarian community.
In this flashpod, Olivier Mills, Founder of Baobab Tech, talks about NetHope’s Global Summit and Dev Explorer, a Frontier Tech Hub pilot project supported by FCDO, with Humanitarian AI Today producer Brent Phillips. They cover takeaways from NetHope’s recent Global Summit and conversations that took place focusing on rapid advances in AI and on the need to see humanitarian actors work more closely around AI from deeply technical vantage points. They also discussed Dev Explorer, open data sharing frameworks like IATI, explainable AI and new funding initiatives like Humanity AI.
This conversation explores critical challenges that the humanitarian community faces in keeping pace with the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. Olivier and Brent highlight the urgent need for humanitarian actors to move beyond high-level discussions and build new pathways for effective, deeply technical collaboration to harness AI's potential responsibly.
Substack notes: https://humanitarianaitoday.substack.com/p/olivier-mills-from-baobab-tech-on
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Cole Leng on the State and Future of On-Device Machine Learning for Humanitarian Action
Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In daily five-minute flashpods we pass the mic to humanitarian experts and technology pioneers, to hear about new projects, events, and perspectives on topics of importance to the humanitarian community.
In this flashpod, Cole Leng, an AI Researcher at Harvard and former Project Manager with Nexa AI, sits down with Humanitarian AI Today producer Brent Phillips to discuss the state-of-the-art and future trajectory of on-device machine learning.
The discussion provides researchers and staff from humanitarian organizations with important insights into where the state-of-the-art in on-device machine learning stands today and where the cutting-edge is heading. Cole examines the critical trade-offs between on-device and cloud models, analyzing their respective workflows, performance limitations, and implementation considerations to help listeners evaluate whether on-device ML applications are suitable for their specific needs. He also offers insight into choosing LLMs, the impact of new specialized hardware on performance and capability, and how current advances in ML are shaping the next generation of applications.
This episode highlights a core goal of the Humanitarian AI Today podcast: fostering dialogue between technology researchers and humanitarian practitioners. As AI and ML capabilities scale rapidly, this cross-sector engagement is crucial for mapping new technical advances to the unique operational, privacy, and resource constraints of the humanitarian field.
Substack notes: https://humanitarianaitoday.substack.com/p/cole-leng-on-the-state-and-future
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Neha Bajwa from Neo4j Unveils New Tools to Build, Test, and Deploy AI Agents
Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In daily five-minute flashpods we pass the mic to humanitarian experts and technology pioneers, to hear about new projects, events, and perspectives on topics of importance to the humanitarian community.
In this flashpod, Neha Bajwa, Vice President of Product Marketing at Neo4j, joins Humanitarian AI Today producer Brent Phillips to discuss Neo4j’s major plans to support agentic AI systems that will directly benefit nonprofits and humanitarian organizations. Neo4j is the world’s leading graph intelligence platform for AI systems, and the company’s two new tools, Neo4j Aura Agent and the Model Context Protocol Server for Neo4j, will address critical development obstacles and help organizations rapidly build, test, and deploy AI agents. They also discuss Neo4j’s Graphs for Good program and Neo4j’s upcoming “NODES” developer conference, which is the biggest graph community gathering dedicated to applications, data intelligence, knowledge graphs, and AI.
Substack notes: https://humanitarianaitoday.substack.com/p/neha-bajwa-from-neo4j-unveils-new
Humanitarian AI Today is the leading AI for Good podcast series focusing on humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence. We interview leaders, developers and innovators advancing humanitarian applications of AI from across the tech and humanitarian communities. The series is produced by the Humanitarian AI meetup.com community, linking local groups in Cambridge, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Berlin, Oslo, Geneva, Zurich, Bangalore, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
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