What is Generative AI and how can it help you with your data?

Our first webinar in a series of three on how AI can support the third sector’s data use. In a jargon-busting introduction to generative AI, DataKind UK and Insight Infrastructure support you in understanding how generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) actually work, their best uses, and their limitations.

Resources mentioned in the webinar

This list will not be regularly updated, but we may share more in future!

Ethical AI

• Building Guardrails for Large Language Models (LLMs) in Private Equity | by WovenLight | Jan, 2025 

• Event recap: Humans in the machine - the impact of AI on workers - MERL Tech

• Inside the AI Factory: The Humans That Make Tech Seem Human 

• Is it even possible to procure an ethical AI tool? Insights from the NLP Community of Practice - MERL Tech

• Fairwork AI

• The MERL Tech Initiative

Third sector use examples

• WWF uses AI to create two visions of the future to spur action | News Tech 

• Caddy AI: Phone waiting times for public services could be cut in half after successful AI trial, minister suggests | Politics News 

• DataKind Humanitarian Assistant: Humanitarian Data Insights Project: Using generative AI to streamline data access and use for humanitarian action

• AI in grantmaking peer group meeting - CAST 

Preserving privacy

• Open AI privacy policy: Privacy policy | OpenAI 

• ICO guidance: How to use AI and personal data and How do we ensure lawfullness in AI?

• Principles for responsible, trustworthy and privacy-protective generative AI technologies

Learning and general resources

• AI Resources - CAST 

• Generative AI for Everyone

• DataKind Global Generative AI Playbook

• CAST AI Resources and CAST Digital Leads Network 

• AI4C Working Group

• SCVO AI Guides

History of AI

• History of AI Winters - Actuaries Digital 

• The History of AI: A Timeline of Artificial Intelligence | Coursera

What are LLMs

• Generative AI with Large Language Models | Coursera

• Dummies Guide to Understanding LLM

• Mastering LLM Agent: The Tester's Essential Guide 

Environmental cost

• The Environmental Impacts of AI -- Primer

• Is AI carbon footprint worrisome?

• Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact

• AI has an environmental problem. Here’s what the world can do about that.

Future AI use

• CO₂ Emissions and Models Performance: Insights from the Open LLM Leaderboard 

• a Hugging Face Space by open-llm-leaderboard

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Your speakers

Michelle Lee

Michelle is a Director in the Deployment team at WovenLight, a category-defining private equity firm powered by cutting-edge AI and expertise in real-world deployment. She currently leads the Private Equity Roundtable on Responsible AI, co-developing policies and guidelines for the industry around safe and scalable usage of AI. Michelle has completed a PhD at Cambridge in Computer Science with a focus on mitigating unintended biases in AI systems.

Nick Sorros

Nick is the CTO of MantisNLP, a data science consultancy focused on genAI with a remote first culture and clients worldwide. Nick has more than 10 years of experience working as a data scientist in places like the Wellcome Trust and various startups at different stages of maturity. Nick has also been a member of DataKind for more than 5 years and has participated in a couple of dives as a volunteer and ambassador.

Dulcie Vousden

Dulcie is DataKind UK’s Head of Data Science, where she has spent the last five years supporting third sector organisations to use their data more effectively and advocating for the ethical and responsible use of data in the sector. Prior to DataKind UK, she completed a PhD in medical biophysics and has over 15 years of experience designing and analysing data-focussed projects.

Thank you to the Insight Infrastructure programme for their support. Developed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it aims to democratise access to high-quality quantitative and qualitative data and evidence through open collaboration and innovation, to help tackle injustice and inequality in the UK.