{"id":248240,"date":"2026-05-06T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/?p=248240"},"modified":"2026-05-06T10:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T14:33:10","slug":"what-happened-when-over-200-wash-professionals-showed-up-to-talk-about-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/2026\/05\/06\/what-happened-when-over-200-wash-professionals-showed-up-to-talk-about-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happened When Over 200 WASH Professionals Showed Up to Talk About AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earlier this month, The Water Project joined the Millennium Water Alliance and over 200 WASH professionals for a virtual learning event called “Tools, Trade-Offs, and Takeaways: Exploring Practical Applications of AI for Water Security.” The session brought together practitioners, technologists, and researchers to explore a question that’s becoming harder to ignore: where does AI actually fit in the work of delivering and sustaining clean water?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were one of several presenters, and the conversation was grounded in real projects, not hypotheticals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What We Shared<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our Director of Innovation and Technology, Peter Chasse, presented the story behind ShockCalc, a field chlorination dosing calculator we built using AI-assisted development. The Water Project doesn’t just build water points. We maintain over 2,800 of them across Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. Every time a well is opened for repair, it’s exposed to contamination and needs to be shock chlorinated before it goes back into service. Getting the chlorine dose right matters. Too little is ineffective. Too much is dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about ShockCalc and sign up for Beta access: <\/strong>https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/shock-calc-app<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before ShockCalc, our field teams worked from paper charts, manually calculating water column depth, well volume, and chlorine mass, often juggling unit conversions in their heads. The app replaced that process with a tool that handles the math reliably and quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What made the development story unusual was the method. Peter used “vibe coding,” an approach where AI writes the bulk of the code while a human directs architecture, logic, and testing. The working app went from concept to field testing in about a week. We wrote about the full development story last year in The Problem We Didn’t Know AI Could Solve (But It Did)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Who Else Presented<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The event featured perspectives from across the sector:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivier Mills, Baobab Tech<\/strong> presented on WASH AI, a platform designed to make sector knowledge more accessible through artificial intelligence. WASH AI aims to support professionals working in governments, NGOs, and community organizations by providing AI-powered knowledge tools, technical support, and learning resources across 20+ languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicolas Dickinson, WASHNote<\/strong> shared work on an AI Learning Companion developed with IRC for the WASH Systems Academy, which serves over 8,000 registered learners. The tool uses AI to support self-directed learning and connect users with relevant sector knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Samuel Segun, Global Center on AI Governance<\/strong> addressed the ethical dimensions of AI adoption in development contexts, including questions around data governance, algorithmic accountability, and responsible implementation, an area the audience had significant questions about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Takeaway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Over 200 people registered and 116 attended live, which says something about where the sector’s attention is going. The questions in the Q&A reflected a mix of curiosity and healthy skepticism: How do you validate AI-generated outputs? What are the ethical guardrails? How do smaller organizations get started without deep technical capacity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the right questions. The Water Project has been experimenting with AI since 2024 across marketing, financial reporting, and program field use. ShockCalc is one example, but not the only one. We’ve found real value in building bespoke tools when we need them, for the specific problems we actually face. A careful approach keeps our data safe and humans in the loop, and that discipline is what unlocks the rest. AI isn’t going to solve the water crisis, but it can solve specific, well-scoped problems within it. Start where the problem is clear and the stakes of getting it wrong are understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Millennium Water Alliance plans to continue this conversation with a follow-up event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Watch the Recording<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The full event recording is available on YouTube: Watch “Tools, Trade-Offs, and Takeaways: Exploring Practical Applications of AI for Water Security”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Screenshot of the recording on YouTube<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Water Project has been a member of the <\/em>Millennium Water Alliance<\/em><\/a> since 2024. Learn more about <\/em>how we work<\/em><\/a> and our approach to <\/em>maintaining water points<\/em><\/a> across sub-Saharan Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Peter Chasse, Founder & Chief Innovation and Technology Officer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guest blog writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Water Project<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, The Water Project joined the Millennium Water Alliance and over 200 WASH professionals for a virtual learning event called “Tools, Trade-Offs, and Takeaways: Exploring Practical Applications of AI for Water Security.” The session brought together practitioners, technologists, and researchers to explore a question that’s becoming harder to ignore: where does AI actually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248269,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248240\/revisions\/248269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}