Three days.
One ecosystem.

A welcome address and overview of the conference objectives for AI for Development and Impact (AI4D) 2026.

How can AI help humanitarian teams turn scattered information into timely, better-informed action? Drawing on the Norwegian Refugee Council’s experience, Zineb Bhaby explores the practical choices involved in applying AI to humanitarian response. The keynote will examine where AI can support decisions, what makes its outputs trustworthy and usable, and how organisations can work together on shared data and infrastructure. It will offer a perspective on the capabilities, partnerships and accountability needed to make AI useful to the people delivering and receiving assistance.

National-level connectivity metrics, whether for internet access or for women's phone ownership, are insufficient predictors of actual AI readiness. Before AI for development can deliver on its promise, those designing, implementing, and funding these tools need to understand the local connectivity context rather than deploy first and adjust later. Unlike binary connectivity measures, actual connectivity is often cyclical, shaped by recurring supply- and demand-side disruptions like cost, economic shocks, restricted device access, and unreliable electricity. Using a case study from Northern Nigeria, we’ll take a closer look at what localized data on AI readiness reveals, and why nuanced formative research is a critical step in AI design. Following a short overview of some AI readiness tools and data sets, including sub-national segmentations and AI-readiness forecasting tools, participants will be invited to engage in problem solving and discussion in small groups. We’ll finish with an open conversation about how and when formative research and local-level data can support improved AI impact in LMICs and what is still missing. Participants will leave able to ask sharper questions, evaluate tradeoffs, and identify the best use of scarce resources before they fund or deploy.

A panel on how advanced AI tools can improve development delivery, and what it takes to move from promising pilots into accountable institutional workflows.

Ownership is not a footnote to economic policy; it decides who controls assets, captures returns and has a voice when priorities shift. This opening sets out the day's central question: which ownership models can spread agency and prosperity while remaining investable, competitive and capable of operating at scale?

Closed-door side event on responsible AI risk monitoring.

Artificial intelligence could lift productivity while concentrating rents among a small group of firms and investors. The panel will examine its effects on wages, bargaining power and job quality, and ask which European policies can widen access to the gains without weakening innovation, investment or global competitiveness.

MONDRAGON shows that democratic ownership can reach industrial scale, but its history is also a study in compromise. This conversation examines how the federation balances worker voice, solidarity and shared prosperity with capital needs, international competition and the practical demands of governing a complex global business.

Platform cooperatives promised a democratic alternative to venture-backed marketplaces, yet few achieved comparable scale. Using Fairbnb.coop as a candid case study, the session will examine network effects, capital, governance and user convenience, then ask what mutualistic AI ventures must design differently from the outset.

As humanitarian needs continue to outpace available resources, organizations are under increasing pressure to do more with less. Yet many agencies and actors face the same challenges, often investing separately in similar tools, systems, and capabilities. What if we brought together ecosystem players to co-ideate and collaboratively explore how shared ownership, partnerships and scaling approaches can reshape humanitarian innovation? Co-hosted by the WFP Innovation Accelerator and the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, this session explores how shared ownership, partnerships and collaborative scaling approaches can help address common humanitarian challenges. Together, participants will examine what these common challenges are, and how to strengthen coordination, accelerate innovation adoption and create greater value for the whole humanitarian ecosystem. This discussion will bring together perspectives from stakeholders across humanitarian organizations, technology experts, ecosystem builders, funders, and institutional innovators to collectively address key challenge areas gathered from the experience of the Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator, and co-ideate on possible solutions.

Erik Forman, Co-Founder of The Drivers Cooperative, will present “Lessons from The Drivers Cooperative: Can Technology Ventures Really Work with Democratic Governance?”

What does it really mean to own the platform you work on? This study explores a freelancer-owned cooperative, finding that voting rights do not guarantee equal influence or shared wealth. As fewer members contributed new work and earnings remained concentrated, it asks what turns membership into meaningful ownership.

This session examines how Europe can convert viable companies into employee, cooperative, or other democratic ownership structures. Although alternative ownership models offer a response to concentrated market power and unequal wealth, most workers and communities lack the capital, transaction support, and institutional infrastructure needed to acquire productive assets. The panel will explore how ethical banks, sellers, public institutions, and patient investors can share financial risk without placing unsustainable debt on companies or transferring control to outside capital

This session begins after a company has crossed the ownership threshold. It asks how that company can preserve its mission, distribute economic benefits fairly, and maintain meaningful participation through changes in leadership, financing, strategy, and market conditions. The panel will separate the different rights that conventional ownership often combines, including rights to profits, governance, appointments, sale, and changes of purpose.

Louis Kelso argued that broad access to productive capital, rather than redistribution alone, was essential to an inclusive economy. This conversation revisits that claim through models for employees, consumers, residents and producers, asking which can broaden wealth and agency without becoming financially fragile or administratively burdensome.

Ownership becomes tangible when it shapes energy, housing, civic technology and other shared infrastructure. Drawing on cooperative, architectural, robotics and policy perspectives, this panel asks who holds control rights, how stakeholders exercise voice and what stewardship requires when assets must serve communities for decades.

Across development and humanitarian systems, locally rooted leaders are defining priorities, designing solutions, and shaping how progress is measured. This session examines how local expertise, lived experience, and direct community feedback can influence investment, policy, product design, and institutional decision-making. The speakers bring perspectives on three connected forms of leadership: creating solutions grounded in local realities, generating evidence through direct engagement with communities, and building networks that strengthen local technical capacity and decision authority. Together, they will explore who defines the problem, whose knowledge establishes value, and how locally led approaches can shape practice across regions. The conversation centers leadership, accountability, ownership, and trust—connecting directly with the conference’s wider questions about who controls emerging capabilities, who benefits from them, and whose expertise becomes visible and influential.

Sustainability systems verify products, emissions and compliance more readily than they reveal who shares in the value created. This bridge session asks whether certification and traceability can recognize worker participation, producer benefit and shared ownership, and what market infrastructure would make those claims credible.

Beneficial ownership transparency can strengthen procurement, investment and responsible trade, but disclosure also creates risks for privacy, security and commercial confidentiality. The panel will explore where visibility builds trust, where it may cause harm, and how digital identity and traceability systems can balance the two.

Environmental data is abundant but fragmented across institutions, formats and rules. This live lab asks whether a federated commons can enable interoperability without creating another extractive platform, focusing on access, contribution, assurance and incentives, as well as the governance needed to make shared infrastructure credible.

Trusted commerce depends on more than disclosure. It requires shared standards, interoperable data, credible verification and governance that can withstand commercial pressure. These opening remarks frame the day around a practical question: what infrastructure is needed for claims about origin, impact and compliance to be relied upon across markets?

The energy transition is intensifying demand for critical minerals, yet markets still struggle to distinguish cleaner production from better marketing. This panel asks what evidence can make the 'cleanest ton' visible and valuable, linking emissions and traceability with water, biodiversity, labor conditions and community benefit.

Supply-chain shocks increasingly move faster than conventional risk processes. This case study examines how agentic modeling and shared data can support decisions across procurement, operations, finance and sustainability, while asking whether fragmented signals can become timely intelligence without creating systems that users cannot explain or challenge.

A case study on digitizing assessment tools for the environmental performance of leather manufacturers, while preserving trust in the assurance process.

Forest supply chains generate growing volumes of satellite, certification and operational data, yet the evidence remains scattered across institutions and formats. This session asks how protocols, verification and governance can turn those signals into accountability at scale while preserving local knowledge and the authority of established standards.

What if compliance assessments were based on 100% of available data rather than a small sample? As traceability systems become ubiquitous and AI-powered analytics mature, supply chains are approaching a fundamental shift in how trust is established and verified. This session examines the emergence of shared compliance ecosystems that connect traceability data, operational records, and third-party assurance into a continuous model of risk monitoring. Attendees will explore real-world examples showing why compliance failures often originate far upstream of where they are detected and how AI-enabled assurance can help organizations identify risks earlier, improve audit effectiveness, reduce compliance costs, and create strategic value from trusted supply chain data.

Satellite imagery can reveal land-use change and environmental risk at a scale field audits cannot match, but remote signals still need interpretation and corroboration. This case study examines how geospatial, operational and human evidence can be combined, and what governance is required before nature-tech insights support credible claims.

This session is full and attendance is by invitation only. Digital claims are useful only when counterparties can verify who issued them, what evidence supports them and whether they remain valid. This closed-door session examines the registrar architecture behind CommonID, including identity, permissions, assurance and interoperability, and how institutions can share rails without surrendering authority.

Europe has built an ambitious framework for traceability, product information and circularity. The harder task is turning those rules into functioning markets rather than layers of cost and paperwork. This discussion asks where regulation is creating investable demand, where implementation is fragmented and whether European standards can shape global commerce.

Circularity has no shortage of promising technologies, but too few reach commercial scale. This session examines how investors, corporations and venture builders can match capital to the distinct risks of adoption, industrial expansion and market creation, and which evidence can distinguish durable opportunity from an attractive but unproven narrative.

Trusted commerce requires AI workflows that can operate across organizations without obscuring responsibility. This demonstration shows how permissions, evidence, escalation and human review can be combined in multi-stakeholder processes, testing whether shared infrastructure can deliver speed while preserving auditability, control and the right to challenge decisions.

Compliance is shifting from supplier questionnaires toward product-level evidence and continuously updated data. This workshop examines how companies can organize information for ecodesign, traceability and regulation, where collaborative workflows and AI can reduce repeated work, and what must be standardized to keep faster compliance reliable.