Today in Bangkok, 50 disaster management leaders from South and Southeast Asia met to turn interest in AI into tools you can actually use during emergencies.
How can you speed up critical decisions when every minute counts? That was the question guiding the AI Jam for disaster response professionals, organized by OpenAI with the Gates Foundation, ADPC and DataKind.
What happened in Bangkok
Representatives from 13 countries participated: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.
They came from government agencies, multilateral bodies and NGOs on the front lines coordinating information and supporting affected communities. Think of the people who answer calls, write situation reports, and decide where to send the next truck — that was the kind of experience in the room.
During the day, teams worked side by side with mentors from OpenAI to find practical AI uses that can fit into real processes. Instead of talking about theory, they explored building custom GPTs and reusable workflows for concrete tasks: situation reports, needs assessments, public communication and other operational activities.
