UN Global Pulse, the Secretary-General’s innovation initiative on big data and AI, and Dataminr, the leading AI platform for first response, today announced a partnership at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. The partnership will equip thousands of United Nations (UN) personnel with Dataminr’s First Alert product for the public sector.

The partnership advances the Secretary-General’s Strategy on New Technologies, an effort to boost the UN’s uptake of cutting-edge technology and accelerate learning, innovation and entrepreneurship for progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“UN agencies and personnel around the world need the earliest possible indications of an emerging crisis to respond effectively. Our partnership with Dataminr will help the UN better leverage the power of AI to strengthen our work and help keep UN teams safe,” said Robert Kirkpatrick, Director of UN Global Pulse.

Dataminr founder and CEO, Ted Bailey, said, “Dataminr shares a common vision with our UN partners for a future in which AI and real-time data serve a greater, public good. We are proud to support the UN Secretary-General’s Strategy on New Technologies by deploying Dataminr to accelerate humanitarian and crisis response efforts across the United Nations.”

Teams at the UN have begun using Dataminr to mobilize around unanticipated events, where the health and safety of vulnerable populations — or UN personnel — are on the line. One early adopter is the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The office’s use of Dataminr, in alignment with existing policies, is intended to help bring together humanitarian actors to coordinate the most effective response to crises anywhere in the world.

By detecting the earliest signals on risks within thousands of publicly available information (PAI) sources, Dataminr’s advanced AI platform enables rapid mobilization and more effective response. Dataminr often proves to be critical in the wake of cyclones, hurricanes, wildfires, and earthquakes that cause catastrophic damage, destroy crops, and cause disease outbreaks.

“The scope of Dataminr’s detection capability is truly global. Personally, I have already realized the benefits of using Dataminr when working in a number of challenging UN Mission areas around the world,” said Stefan Lemm of the Operations Support Division in the Office of Information and Communication Technology at UNHQ.