Humanitarian AI Today

Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In daily five-to-fifteen 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, Olena Shevchenko, a data scientist and machine learning engineer, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today producer, Brent Phillips, about Wintertime conditions in Ukraine and her experimentation with Neo4j, a graph intelligence platform, to build a "Personal Knowledge Agent.”

Seeking a more structured way to retain and reuse knowledge, Olena explains how her application converts unstructured text into a network of "concepts" and "connections," allowing for precise, context-aware answers to user queries. Her project highlights uses of Neo4j combined with Local Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). Olena and Brent help to provide staff from Humanitarian organizations with an introduction to Neo4j and how knowledge graphs could help transform humanitarian aid by mapping complex relationships between organizations, people, and activities across global crises.

Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In daily five to fifteen 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, Ali Al-Mokdad, a humanitarian leader speaks with Humanitarian AI Today producer, Brent Phillips about his experimental AI-native podcast called “Quantum Humanitarian” which explores the intersections of humanitarian realities, diplomacy, technology, and global affairs. Unlike traditional formats, this series does not follow scripts written by Ali Al Mokdad. Instead, it is powered by AI reading, assessing, and analyzing Ali's work, research, articles, and webinars, turning those insights into structured conversations and deep explorations of key themes. This is the first AI-native podcast in the humanitarian and development sector, pioneering a new way of exploring complex global issues through AI.

This experiment aims to visualize future workflows in the humanitarian sector and explore how agentic AI can represent human thought in the digital landscape.

Ali shares several surprising observations from producing 29 episodes, noting that the AI hosts have become remarkably adept at identifying trends in his work and even mimicking his specific vulnerable yet data-driven style. Ali emphasizes that the primary challenge of AI is not the technology itself but the organizational transformation required to leverage it. He urges the humanitarian community to invest in learning and development rather than overestimating risks or underestimating the opportunities presented by these tools.

Thomas Byrnes, CEO and Lead Consultant of MarketImpact, speaks with Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI Today producer, about the growing challenge of "shadow AI" in the humanitarian sector. Byrnes defines shadow AI as the unauthorized use of AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini by organization staff and field teams. While these tools offer benefits and productivity gains, their unofficial use introduces serious risks, such as the accidental sharing of sensitive beneficiary data, linguistic errors, poor decision making in aid and protection contexts, and "hallucinations" that might lead to incorrect assessments during program design.

To mitigate these risks, Byrnes introduced AidGPT, a training brand that provides humanitarian teams with the skills to use AI tools ethically and safely. A central component of this training is the AI workflow card, an open-source toolkit designed to force users to pause and define the AI's role, set guardrails against misinformation, and verify outputs against approved data checklists. Byrnes emphasizes that while AI tools can provide much-needed efficiency in an underfunded sector, they must be treated like "junior staff members" who require constant supervision and human accountability. Ultimately, he argues for breaking the stigma and "shame" surrounding AI use to facilitate an open, community-wide dialogue about risks, operational best practices and lessons learned.

David Schoeller-Diaz, Impact Engagement Manager formerly with the CyberPeace Institute, joins Humanitarian AI Today producer, Brent Phillips, to discuss the urgent need to conceptualize cybersecurity and artificial intelligence as public goods rather than individual responsibilities. Drawing from twenty years of experience in the humanitarian and peace-building sectors, David highlights how grassroots organizations are currently targeted by sophisticated threats like ransomware and spyware without adequate systemic support. He advocates for a shift toward collective infrastructure, such as regional cybersecurity operations centers and mandatory platform responsibility, to protect the entire social fabric from the cascading impacts of cyberattacks.

The conversation further explores how community engagement principles from David's work with UNICEF, including localization and building on local capacity, can be applied to AI governance. David warns against the dangers of corporate dependency and "parachuting" external experts into aid and development contexts, instead proposing a "community immunity system" powered by federated learning and blockchain to share threat intelligence while maintaining data sovereignty. Both speakers emphasize that authentic AI literacy and genuine partnerships with local technologists are essential to ensuring that emerging technologies support democratic civic spaces rather than reinforcing existing vulnerabilities.

In Humanitarian AI Today’s first interview recorded in Spanish, David Alejamdro Schoeller-Diaz guest hosts a special interview with Catalina Rebollo, a journalist and regular contributor to Wired magazine in Spanish covering technology and artificial intelligence. Catalina specializes in in-depth reporting on news and complex issues with a particular focus on human rights, inequity and disinformation. She recently wrote on humanitarian technology under siege in Gaza, highlighting the impact of technology blockades and technology warfare on crippling humanitarian operations, making it harder for populations to survive and for aid agencies to fulfill their mandates.

Building on the subject of technology in conflict-zones, David and Catalina discuss how digital tools and AI are becoming indispensable for humanitarian aid while at the same time they are being weaponized by non-humanitarian actors to facilitate the surveillance and persecution of civilians, testing humanitarian principles in new ways that we are only beginning to understand.

Catalina highlights an emerging "two-tiered system" within the humanitarian sector, characterized by a stark disparity in technological capacity. While large, well-funded organizations possess the resources to conduct rigorous research into uses of AI and deploy more sophisticated and secure tools, smaller grassroots NGOs are frequently left behind. This digital divide often forces smaller actors to rely on insecure platforms and tools, leaving their operations and the communities they serve vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches. Power imbalance like these also severely limit the negotiating leverage of smaller NGOs not only with global technology corporations but also with key stakeholders on the ground during a crisis.

The conversation concludes with a call for international political agreements to establish "red lines" that protect humanitarian data, much like the physical Red Cross flag protects aid workers under the Geneva Conventions. Looking forward, the guests explore the potential for defensive uses AI designed specifically to do things like safeguard human rights and provide medical guidance in conflict zones where traditional support has been severed. Finally, they call upon the academic and technology communities to deepen their engagement with the humanitarian sector, helping organizations of all sizes navigate the rapid evolution of AI and unlock its potential as a force for global good.

Interview notes: https://humanitarianaitoday.medium.com/humanitarian-technology-under-siege-a-conversation-with-catalina-rebollo-from-wired-en-espa%C3%B1ol-c7f143c98c97