In response to the increasing frequency, length, impact, and cost of crises, there is a growing focus on anticipatory action within the humanitarian sector, underpinned by crisis prediction and early warning. In addition, many humanitarian organisations have focused on decentralisation and localisation as a way to enable bottom-up resilience and empower the communities they support.

However, new solutions and tools are needed to better predict and manage humanitarian crises and reduce the casualties and fatalities they cause. To support the localisation agenda, solutions should be developed with people and communities at a local level, and grounded in their unique insight and experience.

The collective crisis intelligence (CCI) project from Nesta's Centre for Collective Intelligence Design seeks to develop a collective intelligence solution that combines methods that gather intelligence from affected communities and frontline responders with artificial intelligence (AI) for more effective crisis mitigation, response or recovery.

Over the next 12 months, we will be working with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Solferino Academy, The Alan Turing Institute and the Digital Civics Centre (led by Open Lab at Newcastle University) to research, develop, prototype and test CCI solutions working with two National Societies within the IFRC, Nepal and Cameroon.

We will undertake a phase of exploratory research to understand how collective intelligence and AI is currently being used in crisis management response. Following this, we will work with affected communities and frontline responders to design, use and evaluate localised CCI solutions.

The Centre for Collective Intelligence Design is committed to growing and supporting a community of people working to solve social challenges by combining human and machine intelligence.

This research is focused on exploring the intersection between localised collective intelligence from affected communities and frontline responders, and a particular suite of AI methods known as predictive analytics. Predictive analytics are increasingly being used in the humanitarian sector. However, affected communities and frontline responders are rarely involved in designing, testing or managing these tools.

CCI offers the opportunity to make a transformational shift in how the application of AI in the humanitarian sector develops next, by creating new solutions in collaboration with the people they seek to serve.

This project is funded by a grant from the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH). UKHIH is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and hosted by Elrha - a global humanitarian organisation and the UK’s leading independent supporter of humanitarian innovation and research.

Stay tuned for the publication of our first project reports in September and come along to our report launch event on 15th September where we will share and discuss the findings.