This lightning talk will present an example of a UN-led effort to create an ecosystem of partners able to match digital technologies and AI to humanitarian and development needs the market alone will not deliver on. This effort is called DISHA - Data Insights for Social and Humanitarian Action, disha.unglobalpulse.org. DISHA is a large multi-partner coalition led by UN Global Pulse that brings together technology companies, academic and civil society research centers, philanthropies, and data providers. Importantly, it also includes humanitarian and development agencies who are not only DISHA's users but co-designers of each of the DISHA solutions. Working side-by-side, DISHA partners transform 'AI for good' research papers into robust products that help UN colleagues do their work more efficiently. Currently, we're focusing on two types of solutions to support disaster response planning and community resilience. Solutions of the first type use mobile network data to provide insights about population mobility post-disaster and predict areas of greatest vulnerability based on call and top-up patterns. We collaborate with numerous UN and external humanitarian organizations like CRS and Red Cross. Together, we co-design, test, and validate these solutions while managing associated risks. The second type of DISHA solutions uses high-resolution satellite imagery to assess damage to infrastructure after natural disasters. Rapid access to this data is crucial for first responders. But these assessments, usually manual, can take weeks to produce and may not cover all affected areas. We have recently announced a solution developed in partnership with UN Satellite Center, Google and WFP that allows to speed up the time needed to produce a directional assessment of affected areas by a factor of 6. To learn more, come to our lightning talk or visit our blog: https://disha.unglobalpulse.org/blog/
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