Splunk and Fast Forward partner to empower AI-driven nonprofits

[ad_1] Like different know-how breakthroughs, AI provides monumental alternatives to reimagine options to the world’s urgent challenges. Nonetheless, to harness AI’s energy and potential successfully, we should work collectively to make sure it's used ethically, responsibly, and inclusively.

As a pure extension of our work to assist shut the info divide, Splunk is partnering throughout sectors on utilizing AI for good. We’re thrilled to depend Quick Ahead, a corporation targeted on scaling tech nonprofits, as a deeply valued associate in that work. For a few years, we’ve shared a dedication to empowering tech nonprofits, with an growing deal with the impactful, AI-powered nonprofits that make up the rising AI for Humanity motion.

Splunk is proud to assist Quick Ahead’s Startup Accelerator and different key applications via grantmaking and skills-based volunteering, with Splunkers offering suggestions and experience to Accelerator portfolio organizations. Splunk’s strategic grantees embrace seven alums of Quick Ahead’s Accelerator, one more approach we associate to assist promising tech nonprofits scale. We're excited to spotlight two of these excellent organizations: Closegap and Ersilia.

“AI-powered nonprofits are proving that AI can function a pressure for good throughout well being, local weather, and training. With companions like Splunk, we will speed up this motion—supporting tech-driven options designed with humanity at their core.”—Kevin Barenblat, co-founder of Quick Ahead

Utilizing AI to Establish Crises and Facilitate Significant Connection The youth psychological well being disaster has intensified over the previous decade; but with college counseling departments understaffed and overwhelmed, many younger individuals slip via the cracks. In the present day, the common delay between the onset of psychological well being wants and intervention is 11 years.

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-476064 size-medium" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/closegap-founder-294x300.jpg" alt="CloseGap Founder" width="294" height="300" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/closegap-founder-294x300.jpg 294w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/closegap-founder-1005x1024.jpg 1005w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/closegap-founder-768x783.jpg 768w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/closegap-founder-1507x1536.jpg 1507w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 294px) 100vw, 294px"/> CloseGap founder and CEO, Rachel Miller Closegap is on a mission to enhance the psychological well being of Ok-12 college students by equipping colleges with free, enjoyable, and interactive psychological well being check-ins.

College students reply a sequence of questions on their feelings, power degree, and bodily wants, and the responses are organized and delivered to workers to permit for real-time intervention. These check-ins have uncovered points from gentle to critical; they've helped stop suicides and uncover circumstances of self-harm, assault, and bullying. Closegap has served over 300,000 college students in all 50 states, with over 9 million check-ins.

AI helps Closegap additional improve its effectiveness and attain. Closegap is utilizing deep studying strategies that enhance the triage and classification of scholar wants, serving to workers reply to college students sooner. It’s additionally utilizing massive language fashions (LLMs) to supply disaster alerts and generate messages to college students who want to converse to an grownup. These enhancements imply college workers can attain extra college students, do it sooner, and guarantee college students get the assist they want once they want it.

In the end, Closegap seeks to not solely assist educators reply to college students in disaster but in addition deal with underlying points college students face, like stress and arguments with friends and oldsters. By following up after check-ins, educators and college students construct sturdy relationships rooted in empathy and belief, which improve psychological well-being and more healthy college communities.

Remodeling Drug Discovery in Africa with AI/ML Expertise <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-476066 size-medium" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/ersilia-founders-300x242.jpg" alt="Ersilia co-founders sitting on a couch staring at camera" width="300" height="242" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/ersilia-founders-300x242.jpg 300w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/ersilia-founders-1024x825.jpg 1024w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/ersilia-founders-768x619.jpg 768w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/ersilia-founders-1536x1237.jpg 1536w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/07/ersilia-founders-2048x1650.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"/> Ersilia co-founders Miquel Duran-Frigola and Gemma Turon Africa faces a staggering burden of communicable illnesses, exacerbated by restricted healthcare infrastructure and an underfunded drug growth ecosystem. Recognizing this problem, Splunk social affect associate Ersilia, via its Open Supply Initiative, is revolutionizing the struggle towards infectious illnesses by equipping African scientists with cutting-edge AI/ML instruments whereas fostering a sustainable well being analysis ecosystem.

Leveraging Splunk’s know-how, funding, and expert worker experience, Ersilia has made vital strides in bettering drug discovery and empowering native researchers. Splunk’s assist has been instrumental in enabling Ersilia to streamline information ingestion and analytics, saving over 700 hours of handbook work yearly. This partnership has led to a 10x enchancment in antimalarial drug candidate discovery and facilitated the coaching of over 150 scientists, together with via workshops just like the “AI for Drug Discovery” occasion in Ghana.

Central to this collaboration is the Ersilia Mannequin Hub, an open-source platform providing low-code entry to pre-trained AI/ML fashions tailor-made for uncared for and infectious illness analysis. Splunk’s contributions have enhanced the Hub’s monitoring and analytics capabilities, enabling Ersilia to trace mannequin utilization and enhance efficiency throughout its four-phase deployment plan—from inner monitoring to native deployment in low-resourced settings within the International South.

Ersilia’s affect extends internationally, fostering partnerships throughout Africa, South America, and past, with organizations just like the H3D Centre in Cape City and the College of Buea in Cameroon. With Splunk’s assist, Ersilia is advancing its mission to shut the info divide, democratize entry to AI applied sciences, and empower Africa-led scientific analysis to handle international well being inequities.

Working Collectively for a Human-Centered Future Each nonprofits exemplify the extraordinary good that may outcome when cutting-edge AI allows innovation. Many social affect organizations are racing to leverage the transformative energy of AI, however Quick Ahead’s Kevin Barenblat reminds us that the kind of tech-fueled success loved by Closegap and Ersilia hardly ever occurs in a vacuum.

“We’re seeing a surge in nonprofits utilizing AI to deal with international points,” he notes. “However constructing sustainable, impactful options takes assist. By partnering with AI-driven nonprofits, extra corporations might be a part of making a human-centered future.”