Projects - Emerging tech

Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism, 2025.

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Each year, we ask some of the smartest people in journalism and media what they think is coming in the next 12 months. At the end of a trying 2024, here’s what they had to say.

San José Data Usage Protocols & Public Comment initiative

San Jose, California, USA

Public Comment period for emerging place-based tech deployed in San José

Regulatory Innovation Office (UK)

Science Secretary launches new Regulatory Innovation Office to speed up public access to new technologies

Nucleic Acid Barcode Identification Tool (NABIT)

Washington, DC

The NABIT (Nucleic Acid Barcode Identification Tool) is a low-cost, hand-held, field-ready automated tool to validate the identity of a wildlife or food product, anywhere in the world, without specialized training, equipment, reagents, or even continuous power.

animals

Sentinel

Washington, DC

Conservation X Labs’ Sentinel transforms wildlife monitoring tools — like trail cameras and acoustic recorders — with revolutionary and intuitive AI technology, processing environmental data in real-time as it’s collected.

animals

Earth Fire Alliance

United States of America (the)

Earth Fire Alliance is a global, community-led, non-profit coalition aligned to deliver transformative real-time data from all fires on Earth.

fires

Rapid

Rapid integrates advanced mapping tools, authoritative geospatial open data, and cutting-edge technology to empower OpenStreetMap mappers at all levels to get started quickly, making accurate and fresh edits to maps.

DEMOCRACY X

Denmark (Danmark)

In 2023, the Danish Board of Technology and ParticipationDenmark merged. We are now called DEMOCRACY X, with a focus on technology, society and sustainability.

Climate action

Radiant Earth

Washington, DC

Increasing shared understanding of our world through community-led initiatives that make data easier to access and use.

Clay

Washington, DC

Clay is a nonprofit team on a mission to make Earth observation as useful and ubiquitous as a Google search. We believe in using open, responsible AI to make Earth observation a force for positive change.

deliberAIde

Berlin

We are developing an end-to-end platform for in-person, online and hybrid deliberative participation processes, starting with: AI-assistance for defining the process; anonymously transcribing and documenting deliberations; summarization and in-depth analysis; and final reporting.

Auglinn

Wilmington, DE

Drop notes and questions outdoors with augmented reality, and create 2D and 3D maps. Interact with citizens outdoors and let the city speak.

apps

Air Quality Improvement and Monitoring

New York City

6-month pilot of three pole-mounted static air quality machines

The Things Network

Amsterdam

We are a global collaborative Internet of Things ecosystem that creates networks, devices and solutions using LoRaWAN®.

NYC Smart City Testbed

New York City

The NYC Smart City Testbed Program is inspiring innovation within City government by streamlining and accelerating the citywide process for piloting emerging technologies.

cities

The Things Network New York

Let's build an open, free and community-owned IoT data network for New York!

Improving the Energy Efficiency of Buildings with Drones

New York City

Developed out of NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, Building Diagnostic Robotics (BDR) created robotics tools and AI analytics to aid in assessing building envelope efficiency.

The Citizens’ Biometrics Council

Bringing together 50 members of the UK public to deliberate on the use of biometrics technologies like facial recognition.

Atlas of Urban AI

Barcelona, Spain

ATLAS is a crowdsourced (map) repository of projects happening in cities involving the use of artificial intelligence systems.

Jur

Zug, Switzerland

A blockchain-based platform for decentralized "network states"

Talk to the City

San Francisco

Talk to the City is an open-source LLM interface for improving collective deliberation and decision-making by analyzing detailed, qualitative data. It aggregates responses and arranges similar arguments into clusters.

Gov.UK Incubator for Artificial Intelligence

10 Downing Street

The [UK] Government is establishing an elite team of highly empowered technical experts at the heart of government. Their mission is to help departments harness the potential of AI to improve lives and the delivery of public services.

AfricaOSH

Africa

The African affiliate of the global Open Science Hardware community, plus its global summit

Chat2024

United States of America (the)

An AI startup's chatbots representing each of the 17 major US presidential candidates.

US Election 2024

JournalismAI's project gallery

Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE

Six AI tools under active development by professional newsrooms

ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society

Australia

Creating knowledge and strategies for responsible, ethical and inclusive automated decision-making.

The Civic AI Observatory

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)

Nesta and Newspeak House announce the Civic AI Observatory (civicai.uk), an initiative to support civic organisations plan and adapt to the rapidly evolving field of Generative AI.

Newspeak

Civicspace.tech

Washington, DC

A collection of approachable but well-researched primers on emerging tech and potential benefits and risks

AI4D-Lab

Dodoma

The AI4D multidisciplinary research lab run by two public academic institutions in Tanzania, UDOM & NM-AIST. We set forth an objective to establish a multidisciplinary AI4D lab that fosters capacity development, research and innovation in responsible AI and its application in addressing societal and developmental problems in Africa.

AI Impact Lab

United States of America (the)

At AI Impact Labs, we are dedicated to helping nonprofits and mission-driven companies stay ahead of the curve by providing comprehensive support and training on using generative AI in their workflows.

Anticipatory Innovation

OECD, Rue André Pascal, Paris, France

Public sector needs to prepare for what is coming next, continuously identify, test and implement innovative solutions to benefit from future opportunities while reducing the risks through increased resilience of their public systems. To facilitate that OPSI has developed an Anticipatory Innovation Governance (AIG) model.

Predicting Well Groundwater Quality Using Cloud-Based Machine Learning: DataKind San Francisco Partners with Aquaya and DataKind

New York City

A writeup of the partnership

Clean water and sanitation

Eye In The Sky

Portugal

Using High-Altitude Balloons [and drones] for Decision Support in Wildfire Operations

fires

Dot Go

The first object interaction app for the visually impaired. iOS only.

Jacobs Urban Tech Hub at Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech

Making cities stronger, fairer, and more resilient through responsible technology.

cities

Mozilla AI

Mountain View, CA, USA

A startup — and community — building trustworthy and open-source AI.

Master on Artificial Intelligence for Public Services (AI4Gov)

Spain (España)

A course from the Departamento de Inteligencia Artificial in Boadilla del Monte, Spain

courses

Beyond Borders: Satellite Applications for Humanitarian Emergencies

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)

A report by the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub

reports

MethaneSAT

United States of America (the)

A better and faster way to track methane

Public Interest AI explainer site

Humboldt-Institut Berlin, Invalidenstraße, Berlin, Germany

A project map of Public Interest AI and related research

First AI-written speech delivered by US congressman

Capitol Hill

Representative for Massachusetts Jake Auchincloss used ChatGPT to help introduce legislation supporting AI research

ChatGPT

CS Fund Just Transitions

CS Fund is launching a new funding program on Just Transitions to advance social and ecological justice for a future grounded in justice, joy, belonging, and liberation for all beings.

Project Dokaz Alliance

450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

This project brings together leading innovators from the international criminal law community with pioneers in the Web3 ecosystem to develop secure and resilient solutions for accountability in Ukraine.

Starling Lab

California

A new methodology to restore trust in digital media

history

United States Department of State's Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology

Washington, DC

Secretary Blinken established the office as part of the wider modernization agenda because the constellation of critical and emerging technologies reshaping the world is now an integral part of the conduct of U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.

LearnCard

What if we worked together to enable learner sovereignty, mobility and agency?

Great King Machines

India (Bhārat)

We manufacture embedded city maintenance machines for city civic and green agencies to upgrade to new standards of service to the citizens.

streetscape

Low-Cost Sensors and Systems for Ocean Discovery

Rhode Island

We are creating low-cost, easy-to-use deep-sea systems that gather the most critical data to inform environmental decision-making and deployment strategies.