Geneva AI Initiative

AI Initiative for NGO & IO in the Canton of Geneva

The Geneva AI Initiative is run by the EPFL AI Center in collaboration with the Swiss Data Science Center. The program is designed to support Geneva-based Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and International Organizations (IOs) integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their missions.

Strengthening AI capabilities in International Geneva
The initiative brings together AI experts, developers, policymakers, and the humanitarian community to strengthen International Geneva’s capacity in AI. It aims to enhance the effectiveness and impact of international organizations by providing them with access to leading AI expertise and resources from EPFL, SDSC, and partner institutions.
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Data science and AI can significantly amplify these organizations’ impact. Enhanced analytical tools improve targeting, resource allocation and forecasting. This supports evidence-based decisions and solutions that can scale and deliver measurable societal and environmental benefits.

Program overview

Participants followed a three-step journey:

AI Fundamentals Course (DASHI – 4 days)
SDSC instructors give a practical introduction to AI for professionals in the humanitarian and international sectors. The DASHI (Data Science for Humanitarian Impact) course covers data science, supervised and unsupervised learning, natural language processing (NLP) and generative AI. It combines state-of-the-art course contents with hands-on sessions, real-world use cases and shared best practices. In line with SDSC’s commitment to open knowledge, all course materials are publicly available.
Project Scoping & Proposal Development
EPFL and SDSC experts give each organization one-to-one support to define a concrete AI use case and develop a strong proposal. Selected participants also pitch their ideas at a private workshop at the Applied Machine Learning Days (AMLD). There they get feedback from peers, researchers and practitioners, and can build partnerships
Potential for Project Funding
An independent review will identify the most promising proposals for funding and implementation (12-month projects).

Selected participants also received complimentary access to the AMLD Intelligence Summit 2026 where presented their project ideas in a private workshop alongside other applicants and AI experts. This session provided constructive feedback and opportunities to build partnerships for proposal development.

The 2026 Cohort

This year, 24 participants from 23 different organizations joined the Geneva AI initiative. They explored how AI can advance their missions and connected with experts and peers from the humanitarian sector.

The following organizations took part in the 2026 edition:

Contact

For enquiries, please contact: epflai@epfl.ch