Since 2019, when The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) launched its first AI pilot project, we have been exploring how the Second Machine Age is reshaping learning. Ahead of the release of the first framework for AI in global health, I had a chance to sit down with a group of Swiss business leaders at the PanoramAI conference in Lausanne on 5 June 2025 to share TGLF’s insights about the significance and potential of artificial intelligence for global health and humanitarian response. Here is the article posted by the conference to recap a few of the take-aways.
The Global Equity Challenger
At the Panoramai AI Summit, Reda Sadki, leader of The Geneva Learning Foundation, delivered provocative insights about AI’s impact on global equity and the future of human work. Drawing from humanitarian emergency response and global health networks, he challenged comfortable assumptions about AI’s societal implications.
The job displacement reality
Reda directly confronted panel optimism about job preservation: “One of the things I’ve heard from fellow panelists is this idea that we can tell employees AI is not coming for your job. And I struggle to see that as anything other than deceitful or misleading at best. ”
Eliminating knowledge worker positions in education
“In one of our programmes, after six months we were able to use AI to replace key functions initially performed by humans. Humans helped us figure out how to do it. We then refocused a smaller team on tasks that we cannot or do not want to automate. We tried to do this openly.”
What’s left for humans to do?
“These machines are already learning faster and better than us, and they are doing so exponentially. Right now, what’s left for humans currently is the facilitation, facilitating connections in a peer learning system. We do not yet have agents that can facilitate, that can read the room, that can help humans understand.”
Global access inequities
Reda highlighted three critical equity challenges: geographic access restrictions (‘geolocking’), transparency expectations around AI usage, and punitive accountability systems that discourage innovation in humanitarian contexts. “Somebody who uses AI in that context is more likely to be punished than rewarded, even if the outcomes are better and the costs are lower. ”
Emerging markets disconnect
“Even though that’s where the future markets are likely to be for AI, ” Reda observed limited engagement with Africa, Asia, and Latin America among attendees, highlighting a strategic blindness to global AI market evolution.
Organizational evolution question
Reda posed fundamental questions about future organizational structures, questioning whether traditional hierarchical models with management layers will remain dominant “two years or five years down the line. ”
Network-based innovation vision
“We’ve nurtured the emergence of a global network of health workers sharing their observations of climate change impacts on the health of communities they serve. This is already powerful for preparedness and response, but we’re trying to find ways to weave in and embed AI as co-workers and co-thinkers to help health workers harness messy, complex, large-volume climate data.”
Exponential learning challenge
“These machines are already learning faster and better than us and that, and they’re doing so exponentially better than us. It’s pretty clear what, you know, what keeps me awake at night is what what’s left for humans. ”
Key Achievement: Reda demonstrated how honest assessment of AI’s transformative impact requires abandoning comfortable narratives about job preservation, positioning global leaders to address equity challenges while identifying uniquely human capabilities in an AI-augmented world.
Reda Sadki serves as Executive Director of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), a Swiss non-profit. Concurrently, he maintains his position as Chief Learning Officer at Learning Strategies International (LSi) since 2013, where he helps international organizations improve their change execution capabilities. TGLF, under his guidance, catalyzes large-scale peer networks of frontline actors across 137 countries, developing learning experiences that transform local expertise into innovation and measurable results.
Image: PanoramAI (Raphaël Briner).