A Critical Discussion on Assessing Humanitarian AI Use Cases
On this special Humanitarian AI Today episode, focusing on assessing evidence on the effectiveness of humanitarian AI use cases, Alexandra Pittman, CEO of Impact Mapper, Suzy Madigan, Responsible AI Lead with Care International, Gary Forster, CEO of Publish What You Fund, and Linda Raftree and Quito Tsui from the Meryl Tech initiative discuss challenges associated with assessing the effectiveness of humanitarian aid activities and activities incorporating applications of artificial intelligence.
The discussion touches on challenges associated with collecting, mapping, measuring and assessing data on humanitarian needs and aid activities and activities incorporating uses of AI, and on fundamental questions surrounding crisis contexts, stakeholder engagement, operations, reporting, data transparency, uses of technology and AI, and limits on what the sector can actually deliver around impact.
This podcast panel discussion was originally recorded in 2024 to help inform an accompanying discussion focusing on real-world AI use cases and their impact on humanitarian action co-produced by Humanitarian AI Today, the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub and Elrha for a special six-part panel discussion series critically examining different aspects of humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence.
26/5/2025
47:35
Valentine Pistorozzi on Advances in AI and Boldcode’s Reporter AI Project
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 November 2024 to experiment with a short 15 minute interview format for a special series of new Humanitarian AI Today podcast episodes to be published on Mondays.
14/5/2025
29:07
Luke Marsden from HelixML on the Past, Present, and Future of Generative AI and MLOps
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 where we are today and where the future of generative AI and the uses of large language models are headed. Luke also touches on top-down pressure on engineering teams to leverage AI, HelixML’s involvement in helping companies deploy large language models locally on their own infrastructure, and Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) which standardizes how AI models connect with different data sources and tools, as well as the future of MLOps.
05/5/2025
21:15
The New Commons Challenge: Advancing AI for Public Good through Data Commons
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 (GovLab) at New York University and The DataTank based in Brussels. Dr. Andrew Schroeder is the Vice President of Research and Analysis for Direct Relief and the Co-Director of CrisisReady.
The Open Data Policy Lab, a collaboration between The GovLab and Microsoft, launched the New Commons Challenge initiative to advance the responsible re-use of data for AI-driven solutions that enhance local decision-making and humanitarian response. The Challenge will award two winning institutions $100,000 each to develop data commons that fuel responsible AI innovation in these critical areas. The Challenge builds on the Open Data Policy Lab’s recent report, “Blueprint to Unlock New Data Commons for AI,” which advocates for creating collaboratively governed data ecosystems that support responsible AI development. The Challenge is backed by leading institutions committed to ethical AI and open data. Partners include Direct Relief / CrisisReady, and Harvard Law School Library, and UNESCO as international observer, which will provide subject-matter expertise and evaluation support.
Stefaan, Andrew and Brent discuss the New Commons Challenges in detail and touch on data commons for AI, disaster relief and local decision making, AI governance, data sharing architectures and data re-use, advances in artificial intelligence and human-AI interaction, and the intersection of collective intelligence and artificial intelligence.
02/5/2025
38:38
Ali Al Mokdad on the Aid Funding Crisis: The World Didn’t Fall When Help Left
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 analysis on the challenges of bureaucracy and inefficiency in the humanitarian sector, and the need to incrementally optimize processes and strategies. They also discuss in detail a tribute that Ali wrote in response to the crisis to those who kept going when the systems went silent, entitled: “The World Didn’t Fall When Help Left.” The tribute which reads like a poem can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7316798459745853441/
Ali weaves together powerful narratives of human resilience and solidarity with a critical examination of aid operations and artificial intelligence's potential to reshape the sector. The interview highlights the enduring strength of local communities, showcasing examples of individuals and groups rallying to support each other in the face of adversity, filling gaps when traditional aid structures falter due to funding shortfalls and other systemic challenges.
The interview is part of a new special series of short episodes published on Mondays, providing a broader range of individuals with opportunities to talk about their work, share their views on humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence and discuss developments shaping the humanitarian and technology sectors.
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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