We had the pleasure of being invited to Seattle to attend the first TSI Nonprofit Leaders’ Summit, alongside 90 Global Partners and 1400 Nonprofit Global Leaders and what an event it was!
The guest list was bursting with inspiring Charity leaders, Microsoft Executives, Microsoft Partners and inspirational experts dedicated to driving responsible AI.
Day one was packed with thought provoking topics which are at the forefront of most people’s minds since the explosion of AI products like Copilot have become generally available. The morning session discussing What is AI? Is it for everyone? Presented by Jared Spataro, Justin Spelhaug and Afua Bruce demonstrated how YES, AI is for everyone and in the words of Afua “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. Afua shared her thoughts around how if a Nonprofit or organisation creates the right structure with technology, providing the right guidelines and confidence, that the structure will allow freedom to use the tools and drive creativity and productivity.
Within the Nonprofit leaders panel- discussing how nonprofits are using AI to accelerate their missions we heard from Alex Duncan from the British Heart Foundation around their approach to AI. Alex highlighted the importance of having an AI strategy to guide the charity, as well as the need for open communication to help alleviate concerns. The approach they took was to roll out Copilot to their Senior Leadership team, as well spinning up numerous Proof of Concepts across the charity to help with wider adoption. A key takeaway from Alex’s session was how the training takes time, and that we need to learn how to ask AI to do things, which really resonated with me around how we need to ensure we are positioning it as an evolving tool and not a magic bullet.
Trevor Noah was another highlight to the morning, and to the shock of my colleague I hadn’t heard of him before (yes I must live under a rock) what a fantastic speaker, storyteller and overall human being! Having the role of Chief Question Officer (what a fantastic job!!) his concepts really challenged some of the things I had been thinking about and some stereotypes that we all instil, a few key takeaways from his session were “You cannot learn if you are not willing to be wrong” which is very profound and something I know I can struggle with, he said we needed to “Shift from being experts to learners” having the confidence and support to get involved and hands on and try the new technology. He spoke about how children always hear they are wrong but keep learning was probably one of the biggest messages for the morning, of how we need to change our mindset and be open to making mistakes but still have the hunger to try again.
Day two was equally packed with outstanding presenters and presentations, we saw how AI is being used by the International Rescue Committee to bring data sources together within their app which helps over 13 million refugees and displaced people in 20 languages. Their app provides guidance ranging from emergency service information through to how to register births and how to get legal aid. Their next focus is how AI can help people to fill out and automate the completion of documentation to speed up and remove complexity to access services.
Meg Garlinghouse and Karen Kimbrough discussed the need to embrace AI and soft skilling as strategic nonprofit play. It won’t come as a surprise that “55% of LinkedIn’s members stand to see their jobs change to some degree by the rise of AI” this session focussed on the importance of lifetime learning and how it is a responsibility of both charity leaders and employees to be empowered to continue to prioritise learning.
There were many use cases discussed across the two days which Microsoft presented:
Equally the AI Adoption Journey they presented I think will help shape the journey for many nonprofits.
I cannot wait to see where the next 12 months will take us, I most certainly am starting my learning journey and will be trying to shift my mindset from expert to learner!
