Analyse Asia With Bernard Leong

Fresh out of the studio at the Dataiku Summit Singapore 2026, Nur Hafiza Mutalif, Assistant Head of International Affairs at the Singapore Red Cross, joins us to explore why the humanitarian sector distrusts AI, and what her team built once they worked through that scepticism. Coming to this from international law rather than data science, Nur Hafiza explains why the sector's caution is a feature rather than a lag: humanitarian work rests on doing no harm and on neutrality, and any solution must clear that bar before it clears a business case. Dataiku cleared that bar. Its pro bono experts taught the team how the models worked and let them set the boundaries — which is what earned their confidence. Hafiza walks through the disaster surveillance pipeline that freed four people from daily collation, and the Thailand leptospirosis model forecasting outbreaks from case and climate data. She argues AI should never be justified on efficiency, that data efficiency itself carries risk, and that acting on a forecast d