In a vast collaborative effort involving several key organisations and hundreds of AI engineers around the world, the winners of the challenge have developed innovative AI solutions to aid climate disaster relief efforts and manage waterborne disease outbreaks equitably.
LISBON, 6 June 2025 – The International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI), an organization under the auspices of UNESCO, data science platform Zindi, and the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) at Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), with the support of the NAIXUS network of excellence, today announced the winners of the AI for Equity Challenge. The six-month global virtual contest supported researchers applying advanced cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) to create new solutions that address human health issues exacerbated by the climate crisis.
The challenge was divided into two rounds – the first round being a call for organisations to submit AI challenges they were working on at the nexus of climate action, gender, and health. The organisations selected in the first round were the Kuyesera AI Lab at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, and the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania.
In the second round, AI experts and engineers from all over the world were called on to compete on Zindi to build the best models they could to solve the challenges set by these two organisations. Over two months, 1300 AI builders from 90 countries put a combined 63,000 hours of effort towards building cutting edge AI models.
The Kuyesera AI Disaster Damage and Displacement Challenge asked participants to help communities recover from climate disasters by detecting damaged infrastructure using aerial imagery. The winner was Mark Landry of the USA, who leveraged a novel use of vision large models (VLMs) for detecting damaged infrastructure to secure his place.
The SUA Outsmarting Outbreaks Challenge called on experts to predict outbreaks of waterborne diseases in Tanzania that have a disproportionate impact on women and children. The winner was Yisak Berhanu of Ethiopia, who used simple LightGBM models with clever data aggregations to set himself apart.
“I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and I believe this solution can make a tangible difference to people’s lives in Tanzania,” said Yisak Berhanu. “I’m ready to collaborate with health organizations, offering my time and expertise to ensure a smooth deployment process, assist with any necessary adjustments, and help maximize the solution’s positive impact on the communities it’s designed to serve.”
The AI for Equity Challenge, hosted on the Zindi platform, aligns with the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative’s (ASDI) mission to accelerate sustainability research, innovation, and collaboration by helping to minimize the cost and time needed to acquire and analyze high-value datasets. The challenge focused on equitable futures at the intersection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 5 (Gender Equality), and 13 (Climate Action).
Participants used data made available through ASDI, with a preference towards building on AWS AI services and infrastructure, to develop solutions. The competition was judged and mentored in collaboration with NAIXUS, a network of AI and sustainable development research organizations.
“We are incredibly proud of this partnership and the ingenuity demonstrated by the winners of the AI for Equity Challenge,” said Davor Orlic, COO at IRCAI. “These groundbreaking solutions not only showcase the transformative power of AI but also highlight the vital role of collaboration in tackling global challenges. At IRCAI, we are committed to bridging the gap between research, industry, and communities of practice in AI, ensuring that innovations translate into real-world impact. Moreover, the challenge ultimately afforded us the opportunity to introduce the remarkable achievements of African AI practitioners to the broader AI communities in Europe, fostering deeper connections and shared progress.”
The challenge’s objectives included driving awareness and use of existing ASDI datasets for new sustainability-focused research and innovation, connecting regional and global AI communities on sustainability issues, and amplifying real-world solutions that enable decision-making and action. Throughout the competition, global climate researchers, nonprofits, and tech startups leveraged technical resources based on their needs, including high-performance computing (HPC), cloud compute, AI, generative AI, and machine learning (ML) services. Selected teams received expert guidance in AI sustainability and ethics, along with AWS credits to build their solutions.
About IRCAI
The International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence is an AI-dedicated research UNESCO category 2 centre, committed to bridge both artificial intelligence and sustainable development following the UN’s ethical principles in AI and ensuring via any available means be it research, policy or technology, that the public is the main beneficiary of our actions. With a particular focus on equity, inclusion, and diversity, we develop insights, frameworks and tools to help us, the public, and the broader AI community create AI that represents the diversity and development concerns of people across the world.
About Zindi
Zindi is the leading professional network for AI and data science, established with the aim of making data science and artificial intelligence (AI) skills accessible to all.
With a network of over 85,000 data scientists registered on the platform, from more than 180 countries around the world, Zindi helps data practitioners of all levels learn, grow and access professional opportunities while building real-world solutions for global organisations.
About the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI)
The Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) is a tech-for-good program that is helping researchers, scientists and innovators around the world advance their work on sustainability-related research. The program provides publicly-available access to hundreds of important scientific datasets on the AWS cloud that can be otherwise hard for researchers to access or analyze.
Media Contact
Mihajela Crnko, CCO, mihajela.crnko@ircai.org
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Faustine Ngila