Humanitarian AI Today

Zineb Bhaby, AI Lead at the Norwegian Refugee Council, introduces NRC’s CLEAR (Crisis Learning, Early-warning, Anticipation, and Response) initiative and discusses the critical necessity of data collaboration in the humanitarian sector with Humanitarian AI Today producer Brent Phillips.

The CLEAR initiative is a three-year project supported by Twilio that is designed to build a digital "backbone" for humanitarian cooperation that the humanitarian community can collectively maintain and evolve. Zineb stresses that CLEAR’s goal is bring together humanitarian, academic and private sector partners through a consortium to integrate diverse data sources into unified early warning and early action systems, leveraging artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to transform how humanitarian organizations detect, prepare for and respond to crises.

Discussing CLEAR and challenges associated with the collection and use of data by aid organizations and the imperative to do better, Zineb nevertheless emphasizes that strict data governance remains a priority to protect the safety and sensitivity of information regarding vulnerable populations. By prioritizing an agile, safety preserving, open-source approach that bridges the gap between available information and field response, the initiative seeks to create a more resilient and unified technological foundation for the entire humanitarian ecosystem.

Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In short daily flashpods, Voices passes the mic to guests to learn about new projects, events and advances in artificial intelligence and discuss topics that are important to the humanitarian community.

In this flashpod, Lukas Borkowski, Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at Viamo shares how artificial intelligence can serve the billions of people who remain offline and rely on basic mobile phones. In a conversation with Humanitarian AI Today producer, Brent Phillips, Lukas spotlights the reality that most people in lower income countries live their lives largely offline and disconnected from the benefits of emerging AI applications while at the same time live under mobile network coverage.

Lukas describes how Viamo works directly with mobile network operators to negotiate long-term partnerships that enable national-scale, toll‑free hotlines and behavior-change campaigns and he describes how Viamo is rapidly expanding voice-first gen‑AI experiences for use cases like rural health worker hotlines and disaster-preparedness campaigns.

He outlines Viamo’s cloud and in‑country server architecture, their use of generative AI and speech technology in local languages, and their specialization in behavior-change communication design that is tailored to specific geographies and demographics. Offering examples from public-health collaborations, he illustrates how voice-based generative AI can support and provide both community members and frontline workers with accessible information, advice and decision support.

Touching on broader ecosystem challenges, Lukas highlights the lack of high-quality speech technology for many African and Asian languages and calls for more investment, standardized tooling, and collaboration with aggregators like Viamo rather than fragmented pilots and one-off solutions. He calls for partners who bring clear behavioral objectives and a willingness to deploy imperfect but improving tools, arguing that waiting for perfect technology delays agency for people who urgently need trustworthy information. Looking ahead, he envisions seamless voice experiences where, in a single call, users can learn about services, ask personalized questions, and complete tasks.

Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In short daily flashpods, we pass the mic to guests to tell us about new projects, events and advances in artificial intelligence and to discuss topics that are important to the humanitarian community.

In this flashpod, Golestan (Sally) Radwan, Chief Digital Officer with the United Nations Environment Program and a Board Member of the Allen Turing Institute speaks with Panagiotis Moutis, Assistant Professor at the City College of New York and a member of the Climate Change AI initiative about AI’s environmental “sustainability paradox” with Humanitarian AI Today Producer, Brent Phillips.

Balancing technology’s potential to solve complex environmental problems against AI’s ecological costs, high energy consumption, water usage and e-waste, Sally and Panos emphasize that AI is not a magic solution but a complex equation where the new tools that we’ll use to save the environment are themselves taxing its resources, and suggest that AI’s value must be weighed against costs and resources that the technology draws away from other humanitarian and environmental needs.

The participants explore the potential of on-device machine learning to reduce the environmental footprint of AI by shifting workloads from data centers to local hardware and discuss the critical role of data infrastructure and global cooperation in addressing climate change. Sally touches on the challenges of data interoperability, noting that too many different standards exist for environmental data, which complicates the "multivariable analysis" needed for accurate climate forecasting. Panos offers a somber closing perspective, likening the struggle against climate change to a war where key battles may already be lost. He argues that AI's greatest potential might lie in creating clear, uncurated narratives to help the public and politicians grasp the existential urgency of the crisis. To help address this need for reliable information, Sally highlights the launch of EnvironmentGPT, a new tool designed to make environmental science easier to access and understand.

Humanitarian AI Today is a community-led initiative advised and co-produced by collaborating organizations and technology companies. Amidst a fragmented landscape, the podcast serves as a recognizable channel for organizations, donors, and innovators to collectively use to report AI projects, events and advances, turning raw insight into collective intelligence.

Voices is a new mini-series from Humanitarian AI Today. In short daily flashpods, Voices passes the mic to guests to learn about new projects, events and advances in artificial intelligence and to discuss topics that are important to the humanitarian community.

In this flashpod, Javan Van Gronigen, Founder and Creative Director of Fifty & Fifty, a digital agency that works with leading social-minded organizations, and Donately, a fundraising software provider for nonprofits and peer-to-peer fundraising platform, joins Humanitarian AI Today Producer, Brent Phillips, to discuss digital storytelling and the technical infrastructure required to sustain modern humanitarian missions.

Javan points out that while many organizations have powerful missions, only a small fraction feel truly ready to adopt and execute their digital strategies. Drawing from his extensive background as a creative director for global campaigns, Javan emphasizes that for humanitarian organizations to remain competitive in a crowded digital attention economy, they must move beyond random acts of marketing and instead adopt a cohesive "Engagement OS" that treats brand identity and donor friction with the same rigor as top companies.

The conversation primarily touches on digital transformation and how organizations can leverage AI to bridge the gap between small-scale manual engagement efforts and scalable, one-to-many engagement models. The interview serves as a strategic roadmap for humanitarian practitioners looking to navigate the complexities of AI and ensure that technology serves as an invisible operating layer that amplifies human impact rather than obscuring it. Javan argues that the solution lies not just in adopting more tools, but in ensuring that those tools are secondary to a primary, authentic narrative that builds long-term trust with a global audience.

Yarissa Matos-Soto, Founder of The Curioux, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today producer, Brent Phillips about the critical need to effectively assess artificial intelligence for outcomes and risks within the humanitarian sector. Drawing from her background as a biochemist, data specialist and startup founder, Yarissa explains how her organization, The Curioux, provides advisory services to help for-profit organizations structure their data strategy and pipelines to make data more actionable. Beyond her corporate work, she discusses her passion for environmental science, specifically her efforts to create open-source intelligence for biodiversity that aggregates hyper-local data. She also highlights her leadership role with the Association for Latin American Professionals (ALFA), where she works to formalize the local economy in Puerto Rico through networking and AI training initiatives.

The conversation explores the practical realities of deploying technology in challenging environments, emphasizing the "hidden costs" of connectivity in places like Puerto Rico and Ukraine. Yarissa shares insights on how local professionals navigate rolling blackouts and infrastructure hurdles to maintain digital livelihoods. Looking toward the future, she envisions AI becoming an invisible operating layer in daily life and encourages humanitarian workers to view AI as a tool for augmentation rather than a threat, urging them to find use cases that make practical sense for their missions.