Episodes

  • Ali Al Mokdad on the Aid Funding Crisis: The World Didn’t Fall When Help Left

    Ali Al Mokdad on the Aid Funding Crisis: The World Didn’t Fall When Help Left
    Apr 21 2025
    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.
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    29 mins
  • AI Voices: The Machine Race by Suzy Madigan

    AI Voices: The Machine Race by Suzy Madigan
    Apr 12 2025
    Suzy Madigan, Founder of The Machine Race and Senior Humanitarian Advisor at CARE International, speaks with Humanitarian AI Today podcast Producer, Brent Phillips, about her blog series on AI and society. In this bite-sized episode, they chat through the wide range of ideas explored in The Machine Race blog — from how AI intersects with politics, culture, and philosophy, to its social impact and safety. They also discuss the role of AI in humanitarian operations in the context of aid cuts and what this means for vulnerable communities. This is the first in a HAI mini-series showcasing newsletters and podcasts on AI helping to keep humanitarians informed and connected across communities of practice. Navigate to The Machine Race by Suzy Madigan on Medium and hit the envelope icon to subscribe to new articles: https://medium.com/@themachinerace
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    20 mins
  • Kai Hopkins on the Aid Funding Crisis and Difficult Choices Facing the Humanitarian Community

    Kai Hopkins on the Aid Funding Crisis and Difficult Choices Facing the Humanitarian Community
    Apr 7 2025
    Kai Hopkins, Head of Research Initiatives with Elrha, summarizes hard dilemmas facing the humanitarian and development sectors following massive cuts in government funding. Offering takeaways from Humanitarian Networking and Partnerships Week in Geneva and discussions with other attendees, Kai and Brent discuss four key questions with no easy answers that as a sector we need to consider in response to funding cuts, and discuss the impact of cuts on humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence. Kai shares how his team is responding to the crisis and calls for a fundamental shift in how the humanitarian sector approaches partnerships, emphasizing inclusivity, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace new actors and models. This episode is part of a short interview series, geared for publishing on Mondays, providing individuals with opportunities to briefly talk about their work and share their views on humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence or to talk about developments shaping the humanitarian and technology sectors.
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    22 mins
  • Payal Dalal & Deval Sanghavi: Mastercard's Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge

    Payal Dalal & Deval Sanghavi: Mastercard's Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge
    Apr 3 2025
    Payal Dalal, Executive Vice President of Global Programs at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and Deval Sanghavi, Co-founder and Partner at Dasra, speak with Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher, Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design, about the Center’s Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge, a global call for AI solutions to accelerate inclusion and economic empowerment. Dasra is a funding partner of the AI Challenge, and Dasra’s other co-founder, Neera Nundy, participated as a judge for the Challenge. Done in partnership with data.org, the winners were announced in December 2024: https://newsroom.mastercard.com/news/press/2024/december/mastercard-center-for-inclusive-growth-and-data-org-announce-ai2ai-challenge-awardees/ In this Humanitarian AI Today podcast episode, guest hosted by Aleks Berditchevskaia, Payal and Deval speak in depth about the challenge, this year’s five winners, and share their takeaways and learnings from the challenge and global submission process. Payal and Deval emphasize the importance of bringing partners together to organize and support these kinds of challenges and accelerators, which help source innovations and advance participatory approaches to technology development. They highlight the speed at which the technology sector is advancing and offer advice on keeping pace with, and adapting to, challenges and opportunities that are emerging. More about the Center’s work and its upcoming Global Inclusive Growth Summit, taking place on April 24th in Washington D.C., can be found here: https://globalinclusivegrowthsummit.com/
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    47 mins
  • AI Governance in Humanitarian Action

    AI Governance in Humanitarian Action
    Mar 24 2025
    The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today bring panelists together to discuss the subject of AI governance in connection with humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence. Representing the humanitarian, academic, regulatory and private sectors, Eugenia Olliaro, former Responsible Data for Children Lead at UNICEF, Stefaan Verhulst, Co-founder of NYU’s GovLab, and Meeri Haataja, CEO of Saidot, provide their views and insight on AI governance and on AI governance in humanitarian action. Next, representing the technology and private sectors, Agata Ferretti, AI an Data Governance Expert with IBM, and Aparna Bhushan, Data Governance and Digital Policy Advisor, discuss how initiatives like the AI Alliance are approaching AI governance and provide unique insight on the role of open-source AI in promoting transparency and trust, and the importance of addressing the digital divide and ensuring that AI works for everyone. Panelists explain why it’s important for humanitarian actors to become aware of broader governance conversations connected with AI. They help to outline what AI governance is about, they share how their different teams are approaching AI governance and touch on the challenges of regulating and deploying AI and the challenges of connecting with and engaging communities in humanitarian settings, and the need for adaptive and context-aware governance approaches, real accountability, and global inclusivity in AI policy and governance. Eugenia, Meeri, Stefaan, Agata, and Aparna provide valuable insight on AI governance from their different vantage points and join together in advocating for greater engagement around AI governance. The podcast episode, guest-hosted by Brent Phillips from Humanitarian AI Today, is part of a six-part panel discussion series sponsored and produced by Humanitarian AI Today in collaboration with the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH) and Elrha, with funding from UK International Development from the UK government. The series examines critical aspects of humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence. More information about this episode, its focus, and upcoming discussions can be found by subscribing to the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub and Elrha's new AI newsletter: http://ukhih.org/newsletter.
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Humanitarian Principles in Discussion

    Humanitarian Principles in Discussion
    Feb 25 2025
    The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today have brought together a panel to discuss the subject of humanitarian principles with an emphasis on discussing the principles in connection with uses of artificial intelligence in humanitarian action. Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher, Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design; Marc DuBois, Independent Researcher and Consultant in humanitarian sector; Olivier Mills, Founder of Baobab Tech; and Brent Phillips, Producer of the Humanitarian AI Today podcast, introduce listeners to the subject of humanitarian principles and summarize key principles underpinning humanitarian action. Panelists share key takeaways on humanitarian principles from their work, discussing lessons learned and risks associated with neglecting core humanitarian principles in AI use in the face of explosive advances in AI and whole landscape changes in human-machine interaction that we’re seeing today, and then explore how to align AI initiatives with humanitarian values. For more information on this episode and the rest of UKHIH and Elrha’s six-part panel discussion series, subscribe to their new AI newsletter here: http://ukhih.org/newsletter.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Assessing Evidence on AI Use Cases and their Impact on Humanitarian Action

    Assessing Evidence on AI Use Cases and their Impact on Humanitarian Action
    Jan 28 2025
    The UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), Elrha, and Humanitarian AI Today have brought together a panel to critically assess evidence from real-world AI use cases and their impact on humanitarian action, while exploring approaches to learning and evidence-building. In this episode, Zineb Bhaby, AI Lead at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Zita Lengyel-Wang, Matching Manager at Tech to the Rescue, and Thomas Byrnes, Humanitarian and Social Protection Consultant, join Maria Kett, Professor of Humanitarianism and Social Inclusion, and Tigmanshu Bhatnagar, Lecturer in Global Disability Innovation, from University College London. Hosted by Brent Phillips, Producer of the Humanitarian AI Today podcast. As we delve into Zineb, Zita, and Thomas’ perspectives on AI applications in humanitarian contexts, they highlight challenges faced when implementing and testing these tools, and their insights shed light on the complexities of gathering evidence to assess AI’s impact on humanitarian action. Maria and Tigmanshu then summarize recent key research findings, providing our listeners with a deeper understanding of the broader implications of their work, supported by UKHIH and Elrha. To close, the panelists share key takeaways on evaluating evidence from AI use cases, discussing lessons learned and offering actionable recommendations for improving evidence-building and enhancing the rollout of AI applications in the humanitarian sector. For more information on this episode and the rest of UKHIH and Elrha’s six-part panel discussion series, subscribe to their new AI newsletter here: http://ukhih.org/newsletter.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Abdallah El Ali and Ahmad Tafti on Human Machine Interaction and AI Transparency

    Abdallah El Ali and Ahmad Tafti on Human Machine Interaction and AI Transparency
    Jan 18 2025
    Abdallah El Ali, a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher with a background in cognitive science discusses trustworthy AI, explainability and transparency with Ahmad Tafti from the University of Pittsburgh and Humanitarian AI Today’s Producer, Brent Phillips. Dr. Abdallah El Ali, a Research Scientist at the Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) who is also an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University and Dr. Ahmad Tafti, Director of the Pitt HexAI Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh and Interim Director of Scientific Affairs with Pitt’s Computational Pathology and AI Center of Excellence (CPACE) and head of AI at Youki GmbH provide insight to individuals interested in humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence on human-computer interaction, information transparency and challenges associated with human cognition, attention, learning and information overload. The discussion touches on emerging transparency regulations governing uses of AI systems, the impact of AI generated content on our lives and how humans process transparency information on uses of AI and data, AI generated content and on the functioning of AI algorithms. The discussion is especially valuable for humanitarian actors considering information disclosure strategies on uses and risks associated with AI. The episode builds on discussions on AI transparency launched by the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH) and Elrha, and combines insight gained from research into health AI applications and explainability.
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    38 mins
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