There is an increasing gap between global humanitarian needs and funding available, making evidence-based, data-driven aid delivery crucial. Yet, humanitarian organisations are faced with overwhelming volumes of complex data, often from novel sources. Capacity constraints in rapid data extraction and analysis, as well as low data literacy sideline highly capable local organisations. In 2023, DFS’ Catalyst Lab combined DFS’ expertise in humanitarian data analysis and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and designed GANNET. A collaborative, generative AI-powered tool to help humanitarian organisations access, extract, and visualise life-saving information to boost the timeliness, effectiveness, and accuracy of humanitarian responses and anticipatory action.
DFS will build an accessible, AI-powered “data assistant” for humanitarian staff to enable them to access, extract, and visualise life-saving information from the vast data sources available publicly and within key responding organisations, including local organisations. GANNET will also provide advanced analytics and data sharing capabilities that will allow users to interact with dynamic visualisations and dashboards while GANNET’s event tracking feature identifies trends and emerging crises. To DFS’ knowledge, GANNET will be the first real-time, end-to-end Generative AI platform that combines near real-time Generative AI assistance, analytics, visualisation, monitoring and alerting features for humanitarian data collaboration and effective decision-making.
Continuing the journey, DFS focuses on ongoing product evolution. We actively seek partner feedback, fostering customization to meet the evolving needs of the user community. This phase also involves fundraising efforts to sustain and expand GANNET's impact. If you are interested in being part of this journey, please contact derya@datafriendlyspace.org.
GANNET is a product of the DFS Catalyst Lab, a place where DFS staff can exchange ideas, knowledge, and build ideas and tools to make a positive difference in the social impact sphere. We will follow a sustainable and scalable model focused on five key phases for the initial GANNET MVP and will collaborate with and support the humanitarian community with this tool.
GANNET combines the capabilities of a customised AI chatbot, collaborative data sharing, actionable data insights, and robust security to transform how frontline humanitarian organisations access and respond to sector-specific information in crisis situations. GANNET will empower humanitarian responders, including those operating in low resource environments, to effortlessly recognise patterns and correlations in historical and real-time data, allowing them to concentrate on high quality humanitarian response delivery, instead of time-consuming data management. The AI-fueled knowledge base will support predictive evaluations in the humanitarian sector as global resources increasingly shift to disaster preparedness and resource allocation to support early action.
