On January 30, 2025, André Winzer, CEO of Schaltzeit, attended a community event on “AI in Public-Interest Organizations.” The event was organized as part of the ai:conomics project funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) and held in cooperation with IAC Berlin – with contributions from Katrin Erbacher, consultant for organizational development and psychology, and Tobias Oertel, consultant for AI and digitalization. Here is a brief, personal look back at the event from his perspective.
The participating organizations held a wide-ranging discussion about the possibilities and limits of AI. It was repeatedly emphasized that AI has the potential to increase the common good by strengthening the effectiveness of organizations. The joint discussion was at the heart of the evening: it became clear how important it is to integrate AI skills into teams, test concrete use cases, and engage in intensive exchange in order to make public-interest organizations more effective in the long term.
What impressed me most was the discussion with Odin Mühlenbein of Ashoka Berlin. Odin made it clear that dialogue is not only about recognizing the opportunities of AI but also about critically questioning how this technology can be used in practice – an aspect that is very close to my heart. He also emphasized the importance of rapid prototyping.
One wish that participants voiced several times concerned the lack of concrete tool demonstrations. Although the agenda suggested an experimental character and hands-on tool testing, this practical component was unfortunately missing. Special thanks go to Tobias Gerber for the invitation and the excellent organization of the evening. In the panel discussion, he clarified which next steps participants would like to see so that organizations can exploit the full potential of AI in the future – including in the form of concrete application tests.
The IAC promised to make up for this. Schaltzeit is happy to help present individual AI applications in a more practical way in a future AI-for-the-common-good lab.
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