Data for Good, What Is It Good For?: Challenges, Opportunities, and Data Innovation in Service of Refugees

With 82.4 million forcibly displaced people, we need new approaches to the global refugee crisis. The Hive, the innovation lab at USA for UNHCR, uses data, machine learning (ML), and other emerging technologies to improve lives for refugees in coordination and collaboration with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), known as the UN Refugee Agency. We outline five challenges in successfully leveraging data and emerging technologies in the humanitarian space that tend to be overlooked and share the Hive’s approach and evolution to tackling these challenges. From assembling the right team and finding the right partners to inclusive and impactful data innovation, the Hive has worked to apply industry techniques to the nonprofit sector since 2015. We hope that our insights can help guide data innovation efforts at other organizations in the humanitarian space.