RAND Europe: using Glass.AI to understand adoption of new technologies in the global humanitarian sector.

• Consulting and Research Firms

Adoption of New Technologies in the Global Humanitarian Sector

RAND Europe built the first global database of humanitarian organisations and uncovered evidence of new technologies adoption, including AI.

↗ Key Impact

€150K in value

1st global humanitarian map

  • 7,000+ organisations discovered, categorised.

  • Foundation for future humanitarian tech Observatory

Background

RAND Europe led a project for the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), which needed to build the first global map of humanitarian organisations. The aim was to understand how these organisations engage with emerging technologies in crisis zones and development contexts.

But RAND Europe faced major challenges:

  • No existing structured global database of humanitarian actors.

  • Overlap between humanitarian and development organisations. with blurred boundaries.

  • Outdated or missing digital footprints.

  • Compressed timelines for the project with no extension.

  • Survey fatigue reduces the effectiveness of traditional outreach.

Without a scalable solution, manual research would have taken months, cost large amounts of money, and risked bias toward only well-known organisations.

Solution

RAND Europe engaged Glass.AI to automate the discovery and categorisation of humanitarian organisations worldwide.

Core elements of the solution:

  • AI-driven web reading and keyword classification that discovered thousands of organisations.

  • Human-in-the-loop verification to filter out false positives and separate humanitarian vs. development actors.

  • Weekly agile feedback loops with the RAND Europe team to refine AI model parameters under tight deadlines.

  • Integration of results into ambitious surveys and stakeholder analysis workflows.

“The mapping of the global humanitarian sector has never been done before, this made it uniquely valuable.”
— Pauline Paille, RAND Senior Analyst

Impact

The project delivered the first global humanitarian sector database, creating a foundation for further research, surveys, and technology adoption scans.

Results achieved:

  • Mapped 7,000+ organisations across global regions.

  • Cut research time by an estimated 60%.

  • Filtered out 30% false positives, improving dataset accuracy.

  • Produced a dataset reusable for future sector observatories and technology landscape projects.

  • Estimated financial benefit of £196,000 (savings from avoided manual research, allowing feasibility of the project).

“Responsiveness and openness to feedback were critical, and Glass.AI delivered both consistently.”
— RAND Europe

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