Judges
Andrew Schroeder
VP of Research and Analysis, Direct Relief; Co-Director, CrisisReady
Dr. Andrew Schroeder is the Vice President of Research and Analysis at Direct Relief and the Co-Director of the CrisisReady project with Harvard Data Science Initiative. His work focuses on data-driven approaches to crisis response and health and has been featured in publications such as Science, The Lancet, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He has served as an advisor to the United Nations Development Program and the World Food Programme. Andrew co-founded the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network, a global initiative for real-time digital epidemiology , and is the Co-Founder of WeRobotics.org, a nonprofit supporting robotics applications for humanitarian aid and global health in 40+ countries.
Beth Noveck
Director, Burnes Center for Social Change & The GovLab, Northeastern University
Beth Simone Noveck is a professor at Northeastern University, where she directs the Burnes Center for Social Change and its partner project, The Governance Lab (The GovLab). She is faculty at the Institute for Experiential AI, School of Law, and in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, the College of Arts, Design, and Media, the College of Engineering, and affiliated faculty at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Beth’s work focuses on using AI to reimagine participatory democracy and strengthen governance, and she has spent her career helping institutions incorporate more equitable and open ways of working using new technology. Her newest book Democracy Rebooted: How AI Can Save Democracy will appear with Yale University Press.
Deshni Govender
Country Lead: South Africa, FAIR Forward - Artificial Intelligence for All - GIZ
Engaged in the democratisation of AI in Africa, Deshni Govender advocates a world in which technology reflects the people and society it serves. She also advocates gender equality and representative and inclusive technology. Blending public and private sector experience, her work intersects law, technology, geopolitics, and digital development. Currently, Deshni Govender is a AI advisor in the field of international development for the project FAIR Forward - Artificial Intelligence for All, with GIZ.Working with ecosystem partners in Africa, Deshni has collaborated on initiatives ranging from prototyping new open-source licences with local language communities to co-shaping South Africa’s first AI Maturity Assessment Framework. She has collaborated worked with Gates Foundation, IDRC & Masakhane Research Foundation to birth the Language AI Hub for African NLP and co-created an AI Policy Playbook with global south policymakers with the aim of helping countries chart their own AI governance paths. Deshni is advisory board member of the South African AI Association; co-founder of the GIZ Diverse Women in Tech network and featured on the list of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2022.
Greg Leppert
Chief Technologist, Berkman Klein Center; Exec. Director, Institutional Data Initiative
Greg Leppert is the Chief Technologist of the Berkman Klein Center. He is also the Executive Director of the Institutional Data Initiative, a research center working to refine and publish library, academic, and government collections as public datasets for AI training. Before academia, Greg built startups in NYC and Austin as an engineer and designer. Before startups, he toured the U.S. and Canada in post-rock bands and set type at Hatch Show Print. Greg is a strong believer that most people want to do good in the world and are simply looking for the right way to go about it.
Hubert Beroche
Director and Founder, Urban AI
Hubert toured the world of AI, after which he founded the Think Tank Urban AI. He is also in charge of AI at the IAE Sorbonne Business School's ETI Chair, and today puts his energy and expertise at the service of cities and the urban environment. He is president of the AI for Tomorrow association, which works to reinvent tomorrow's world through artificial intelligence.
Jennifer Chan
Advisor, Humanitarian Data and Public Health Programs
Jennifer is a hybrid researcher-practitioner with over 15 years of experience working with NGOs and UN agencies as a public health, crisis informatics, and humanitarian data specialist. She helped build the NetHope Crisis Informatics Program, and co-authored Disaster 2.0, a report that described the challenges and future of information sharing and technology after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. She currently advises both research and humanitarian organizations including the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and CrisisReady and has served as an advisor to the United Nations Center for Humanitarian Data, NetHope, and the International Federation of the Red Cross. She collaborates with research teams and practitioners to help strengthen the theoretical and methodological assumptions of how scientific applications translate into practice with a focus on operational impact and decision-making, and is an Associate Professor and Director of Global Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Jennifer Hansen
Director, Open Data Policy & Strategy, Microsoft
Jennifer Hansen is Director of Open Data Policy & Strategy at Microsoft, where she leads efforts to advance open data initiatives and forges strategic partnerships across sectors. She has written in Data & Policy on the role of corporate data in solving global challenges and was appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to co-lead the U.S. Research Data Summit. Prior to Microsoft, she served as Senior Officer for Knowledge and Research at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she co-developed the foundation’s landmark Open Access policy—hailed by Nature as the world’s strongest. A recognized leader in the open data movement, Hansen was named a SPARC Innovator and delivered a TEDx Seattle talk, “Setting Scientific Research Free,” advocating for equitable access to research. She holds a B.A. in history and journalism and a master’s degree in library science from Indiana University, where she also taught as an adjunct faculty member.
José Monteiro
Executive Director, ReGeCom; Co-Founder, Data4Moz
Trained at the University of Copenhagen, José Monteiro has spent the last 20 years dedicated to advancing land and natural resources management in rural Mozambique. His work has been instrumental in establishing effective community governance systems and securing community land rights, which are essential to achieving conservation and development objectives. As the Executive Director of ReGeCom, he leveraged the power of collective action to establish national standards that bolster community-led conservation efforts, as a path to improve livelihoods and community engagement in biodiveristy conservation. His commitment to data-driven decision-making inspired to co-found Data4Moz, a Mozambican company committed to advancing sustainable development in Mozambique by delivering accurate, localized, and high quality data to support evidence-based decision making processes..
Juan Casanueva
Executive Director, SocialTic and Director, Center for Data, Algorithms, and Society, ITAM
Juan Manuel researches and promotes ICT for Social Change projects in Latin America. He is the CEO and co-founder of SocialTIC, a non-profit that enables changemakers through the strategic use of ICTs. Juan Manuel has managed, trained and advised NGOs, governments and multinational organizations on the strategic use of ICTs and data to foster transparency, accountability, advocacy, citizen participation, digital rights and social change throughout Latin America.
He is currently the Director of the Center for Data, Algorithms and Society Center of ITAM University where he involves Data Science, Applied Mathematics and AI students in data for good projects with Mexican government agencies and civil society organizations.
He has promoted several regional and international civil society and civic-technology coalitions that aim to increase digital resilience, data literacy and social innovation in the Global South. He was ICFJ Knight Fellow (2014-2015) and in the private sector worked as Business Intelligence and Systems Integration consultant for Accenture.
Jude Kong
Canada Research Chair in Community-Oriented Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases
Professor Kong is a Canada Research Chair in Community-oriented Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modelling of Diseases and the Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modeling lab (AIMMlab), University of Toronto. Additionally, he is the Director of the Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium and the Global South Artificial Intelligence for Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Response Network. He is also the Regional Node Liaison to the steering committee of the Canadian Black Scientist Network. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics with a certificate in AI from the University of Alberta, his MSc in Engineering Mathematics from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and the University of L'Aquila, Italy. His B.Sc. in Computer Science and Mathematics was acquired at the University of Buea, Cameroon, and his B.Ed. in Mathematics was earned at University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. He did a 2-years of postdoc at Princeton University. Dr. Kong is an expert in AI, data science, mathematical modeling, and mathematics education. His principal research program focuses on developing and deploying innovative AI, data science, and mathematical methodologies and technologies to resolve complex issues arising from 'real-world' applications in epidemiology, ecology, and data processing.
Leonida Mutuku
AI Research Director, Local Development Research Institute
Leonida Mutuku is a Nairobi-based data scientist and AI researcher with over 13 years of experience specializing in inclusive technology and AI innovation to address development challenges across Africa. She is currently the AI Research Director at the Local Development Research Institute (LDRI), where she leads research on the development, scaling and governance of responsible AI applications for sustainable development and climate resilience in emerging economies. In this role she has built an AI system that supports smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change and mitigate losses from crop failure. Leonida is also the founder of Intelipro, where she leads a team building reja.ai , an AI-powered financial management platform enabling small business owners to make sustainable and profitable decisions. Globally, she is recognized as a thought leader in technology and responsible AI innovation, AI governance, and data-driven policy implementation. She holds a number of advisory roles, including serving as the Civil Society Digital Governance Cluster Lead at the Open Government Partnership, collaborating with the Kenyan government on ethical, safe, and inclusive digital transformation. She also serves on the advisory boards for Open-Source AI at Digital Futures Lab in India, where she provides guidance on policies in responsible, sustainable, and open AI innovation ecosystems.
Leonida holds a Master of Business Analytics and Big Data from IE Business School in Madrid and a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Actuarial Science from the University of Nairobi.
Marzia Rango
Programme Manager for Migration and Displacement Data, UNICEF
Marzia Rango is an expert on migration and displacement data, working to bridge the gap between data, analysis and policy. She currently works as Programme Manager for Migration and Displacement Data at UNICEF HQ in New York, serving as Coordinator of the International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC) – a cross-sectoral global coalition that aims to improve data and statistics and support informed policies and programmes for migrant and displaced children. She previously worked as migration and displacement data expert at the UN Operations and Crisis Centre at the UN Secretariat, and at IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) in Berlin, where she led work on data innovation and capacity-building. She was the co-convenor of the Big Data for Migration Alliance, a joint initiative of IOM’s GMDAC, the European Commission Joint Research Centre, and the GovLab at New York University seeking to accelerate the responsible use of new data sources and methods for migration analysis and policy.She is co-author of the volume Measuring Global Migration: Towards Better Data for All (Routledge, 2024).
Michael Tjalve
Founder, Humanitarian AI Advisory; UN AI Advisor for Humanitarian Affairs
Michael Tjalve brings more than two decades of experience with AI, from applied science and research to tech sector AI development, most recently serving as Chief AI Architect at Microsoft Philanthropies where he helped humanitarian organizations leverage AI to amplify their impact. In 2024, he left the tech sector to found Humanitarian AI Advisory, dedicated to helping humanitarian organizations and stakeholders understand how to harness the potential of AI while navigating its pitfalls. Michael is Assistant Professor at University of Washington where he teaches AI in the humanitarian sector. He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from University College London. Michael serves as Board Chair and technology advisor for Spreeha Foundation, working to improve healthcare and education in underserved communities in Bangladesh. Michael is AI Advisor to the UN on humanitarian affairs, where he works with OCHA on AI strategy and on providing guidance on the safe and effective use of AI for humanitarian action. Michael is also co-lead of the recently launched SAFE AI initiative which aims to promote the safe and responsible use of AI in humanitarian action.
Mihir Bhatt
Director, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI)
Mihir R. Bhatt is director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI). He works on reducing risk-related action and learning: Experience Learning Series on Learning and Risk Mitigation; Southasiadisasters.net; Afat Nivaran (Gujarati Newsletter) and Vipada Nivaran (Hindi Newsletter). He has published widely on issues of vulnerability and disasters, and has been part of key evaluations of disaster response in Asia. He is a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative since 2007 and was a member of the panel that selects the Humanitarian Coordinators for the United Nations. He advises Climate Development Knowledge Network’s work on climate compatible development in nine states of India with focus on urban resilience, green finance, and renewable energy at subnational level. He is recently invited to join independent panel of INGO Accountability Charter to review accountability of international civil society.
Oliver Wise
Acting Under Secretary for Economic Affairs & Chief Data Officer, U.S. Dept. of Commerce
Oliver Wise is the Acting Under Secretary for Economic Affairs and Chief Data Officer at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this position, Wise is responsible for leading the Commerce Department's data strategy, providing policy direction and oversight to the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau, and advancing capacity for evidence-based decision-making. Wise was the founding director of the City of New Orleans Office of Performance and Accountability, the City’s first data analytics and performance management team. In the private sector, Wise served in product management and strategic roles at Tyler Technologies and Socrata. Wise’s work has been recognized with awards from the American Society of Public Administration, Bloomberg Philanthropies, CDO Magazine, the International City/County Managers Association, Government Technology Magazine, FedScoop, and Harvard University. Earlier in his career, Wise was a policy analyst for the RAND Corporation and the Citizens Budget Commission of New York City. He is also a co-founder of the Santorini-based Atlantis Books. He holds an MPA from New York University and a BA from Tufts University and is most proud of his incredible family.
Robert Muggah
Co-Founder, Igarapé Institute; Global Risk and Digital Transformation Advisor
Robert Muggah specializes in geopolitics, digital transformation and climate action. He co-founded the Igarapé Institute, a think and do tank, SecDev, a cyber-security security company, Bioverse, a forest intelligence start-up, and SuperNature, an urban design lab. Robert advises tech companies, governments and international organizations and is a fellow at Princeton, Robert Bosch Foundation, the Graduate Institute, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Singularity University. In addition to supporting UN agencies, the IMF, Inter-America-Development Bank, and the World Bank, Robert advises the WEF's annual Global Risk Report and serves on multiple international commissions. Between 2023-2025 he coordinated a global task force on safe and secure AI in the Global South. He has authored eight books, many journal articles and is a regular contributor to news outlets such as the Conversation, Foreign Policy, New York Times, and Project Syndicate. Robert gave TED talks in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021 and earned a DPhil at the University of Oxford.
Rohini Sampoornam Swaminathan
Climate and Environment Data Lead, UNICEF
Rohini is an experienced professional in developing large scale geospatial applications for humanitarian and developmental sectors. She currently serves as the Climate and Environment data lead with UNICEF. Her previous roles include head of the Geospatial section in WFP and held diverse roles with UNDP, WHO, UNITAR, and NASA DEVELOP program. Her expertise includes leading geospatial emergency response, climate risk analysis, capacity building, technical coordination and innovative uses of satellite imagery. She actively participates in organizing GeoAI workshops for ITU's AI for Good and with the UN Geospatial Network. Rohini holds an MBA from the University of the People, an M.S. in Geomatics from Purdue University, and a B.E. in Geoinformatics from Anna University.
Roy Saurabh
Founder, Trustworthy AI Assessment Organization; HCI and Ethics Researcher
Roy Saurabh is an applied researcher at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), learning sciences, and AI ethics, dedicated to transforming global education and healthcare systems through citizen science, privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and federated learning architectures. His scholarly pursuits emphasize evidence-based interventions that uphold data sovereignty, ensure responsible AI governance, and foster human flourishing. As the founder of a research-focused organization, he designs trustworthy AI assessment solutions, advancing system transformation in education, mental health monitoring, and digital policy. Roy’s high-impact contributions integrate rigorous academic inquiry with practical implementations, influencing international governance frameworks, and promoting equitable digital innovations.
Shazade Jameson
PhD Researcher, Global Data Justice Project
Shazade Jameson is a Project Officer in UNESCO’s Ethics of AI Unit. Her specialty is connecting perspectives for public interest organisations, and specifically facilitating the design and implementation of AI policy and data justice for public administrations. Currently she is leading the work the Flemish regional government. She was lead co-author of the UN-Habitat and Mila Quebec AI Institute report “AI and Cities: Risks, Applications and Governance”, and worked with GPAI on the Diversity in AI. Her PhD analyses technology policy in Singapore, as part of the Global Data Justice project at the Tilburg Institute of Law, Technology, and Society. She has collaborated with the Global Observatory on Urban Artificial Intelligence, as well as with the ITU United For Smart Sustainable Cities initiative. She is a passionate advocate for agile approaches in policy and research for more effective and humanistic collaboration.
Somya Gupta
Head of Machine Learning & Site Lead, India, EarnIn
Somya Gupta is a data science leader with expertise in building AI/ML models and operationalizing large-scale big data capabilities to drive business intelligence, user trust, and social impact. She is currently the Head of Machine Learning and Site Lead, India at EarnIn, where she leads cross-functional teams to build responsible ML systems that enable financial empowerment for marginalized communities. Previously, at LinkedIn, she led the AI team within Trust & Safety, developing machine learning solutions to ensure safe conversations, and improve the quality of job recommendations at scale. Before that, she worked at Flipkart and Oracle, architecting and scaling key data and platform capabilities. Somya has been actively contributing to public impact initiatives. She serves as a Technical Mentor at J-PAL IDCA program, where she guides fellows in applying data science at their host organisations. Somya holds a master’s degree from IIT Bombay, where she specialized in natural language processing.
Stefaan Verhulst
Co-Founder and Chief R&D Officer, The GovLab
Stefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer as well as Director of GovLab's Data Program. He is also, among other positions and affiliations, the Editor-in-Chief of Data & Policy, an open-access journal by Cambridge University Press; the research director of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance; Chair of the Data for Children Collaborative with Unicef; and a member of the High-Level Expert Group to the European Commission on Business-to-Government Data Sharing. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Yale University, Central European University and serves on numerous (advisory) boards, including Sparks and Honey, Center for Media, Data and Society, among others. He is also Founder and Curator in Chief of The Living Library.
Takahiro Yabe
Assistant Professor, NYU (CUSP & TMI); Resilience and Mobility Researcher
Dr. Takahiro Yabe is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Technology Management and Innovation (TMI) and the Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP). His research focuses on computational social science and network science approaches to model the resilience of cities to disasters, pandemics, and disruptive mobility technology, and has been published in journals including Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS, Nature Communications, and Nature Machine Intelligence. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Institute of Data, Systems and Society (IDSS) and the MIT Media Lab with Alex 'Sandy' Pentland and Esteban Moro. He obtained his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 2021, and his MS and BS from the University of Tokyo in 2017 and 2015, respectively.
Victor Alegana
Early Career Research Fellow at the KEMRI; PhD in Geography, University of Southampton, UK
Dr Victor Alegana is an Early Career Research Fellow at the KEMRI- Wellcome Trust Research Programme. He has a PhD in Geography and Masters degree in applied Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing both from the University of Southampton, UK. He has a keen interest in use of routine health data and application of spatial-statistical data science to public health problems in low- and middle-income countries. This include broad areas of population health particularly on spatial epidemiology (disease burden estimation), health care access, delivery of health interventions, and monitoring Sustainable Development Goals related to vulnerable populations.
Zineb Bhaby
AI Lead, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
Zineb Bhaby is the AI Lead at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), spearheading NRC's AI initiatives to harness emerging technologies to better serve refugees and displaced populations across the globe. She is a humanitarian data specialist with over a decade of experience applying data science and machine learning to complex humanitarian challenges, including leadership roles in major international responses. Zineb has held various data and AI roles in several humanitarian agencies, including serving as Chief Technology Officer at IMMAP. A passionate advocate for open, collaborative, and responsible technological innovation in humanitarian action, she is driven by the transformative potential of AI to address persistent data gaps in the sector.