Vilas Dhar on Humanitarian AI Today

Humanitarian AI Today is a podcast series produced by the Humanitarian AI meetup community, launched by former United Nations staff to give students, AI developers and others opportunities to interface with humanitarian actors, discuss humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence and work on volunteer projects advancing the humanitarian AI field.

We recently interviewed Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a $1.5 billion 21st century philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. A technologist, lawyer and human rights advocate, Vilas is a global thought leader on the intersection of artificial intelligence and technology in the social sector.

The McGovern Foundation and Cloudera Foundations recently merged and we approached Vilas to learn more about the merger and about the foundation’s new Data and Society program. Mia Kossiavelou, Humanitarian AI Today’s host, conducted the interview while Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI’s organizer, produced the interview and Jen Bees, our volunteer audio engineer, helped edit the clip.

The interview covered a host of subjects. It was a pleasure to get to know Vilas and to learn about the McGovern Foundation’s vision and plans for their new Data and Society program. Vilas and Mia discussed the merging together of the McGovern and Cloudera Foundations and how the merger came about and it was interesting to hear what it’s like merging East and West Coast Foundations. Separately, it was especially informative to our meetup community to hear Vilas’ take on open source initiatives and how the foundation plans to collaborate with volunteers and the open source community.

Check out the conversation and other topics covered by Vilas and Mia via Apple, Google and Amazon Podcasts, Spotify and SoundCloud. And remember to follow Humanitarian AI Today!