We are a team of aid workers, technologists, researchers, and policy makers.
Our Members
Open Source Projects
The federation is a community of potential contributors and collaborators interested in building better software for the aid sector. In order to ensure the needs and priorities of those building the software are also considered, we nominate delegates from the software project communities we use and contribute to.
Federation Staff
Our staff carry out the day to day responsibilities of the Federation. We provide consultancy & development expertise to both our humanitarian and open source members.
Humanitarian Aid Programs
As an organization whose mission is dedicated to helping humanitarian aid programs perform as effectively as possible, our aid program membership will be directly responsible for driving the road-map of many of our products.
Our Story
While working in Humanitarian Aid our Founding Member, Mike Nolan noticed that the NGOs he worked with struggled to develop and adopt technology solutions which could significantly streamline their operations. Mike looked at various ways in which a more strategic effort could be employed and was inspired by the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS), who between 2014 and 2015, saved the government £1.7 billion on IT bills . Inspired by GDS and the US Digital Services (USDS) Mike and Kavita Kapoor (Founding Member) agreed that more effective technology and automation solutions could be implemented across the entire humanitarian aid sector. In 2020 they created the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists.
Our Team
Mike Nolan
Mike a software engineer, FOSS consultant, AI transparency & ethics researcher, and humanitarian aid worker. He is currently a core contributor to OpenMined's federated learning team as well as co-founder of the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists. Formerly he worked for the International Rescue Committee R&D building AI systems in Jordan as well as with the UNICEF Innovation Fund. He is most interested in how we can build sustainable software that improves the lives of the worlds most vulnerable populations.
Kavita Kapoor
Kavita is an award-winning technologist for good with a focus on child rights, volunteering and education. As well as being our Founding Member, Strategy and Executive Director, she is Chief Learning Officer for the think tank Open UK, Trustee of South East River Trust, Founder of a grassroots LGBTQ+ sports club as well as being a mentor at the WISE Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. Her award-winning work includes a BAFTA for Channel 4, Luvvies for London 2012 and MIT IIC for the BBC micro:bit.
Neha Tiwari
Neha is an experienced visual designer and has also had the privilege of being “Head of Art” in an Indian School where she won 'The Best Teacher Award'.
The Federation is lucky to have her immense talent in conceptualizing and crafting our range of digital products. She is currently our Design Lead on 'Coalesce ' our Volunteer Management Project.
In addition through our open source steering committee Neha has been supporting our partners to expand their brand capacity ready for impact.
Laura Pledsted
Laura is a former humanitarian and development worker, with a Master’s degree in Post Conflict Recovery Studies. Her work in the humanitarian sector has focused on a variety of roles including fundraising, field research, and project management. She has experience working with programs in the Gaza Strip, East Timor and the Philippines. Laura’s current focus is upon supporting and expanding our membership, enabling opportunities for further collaboration between our humanitarian and open-source community members.