- At heart, the World Food Programme
is at the frontline of all emergencies.
Whether it's a disaster, whether it's a conflict,
we're the last resort.
In any given year, WFP helps over 100 million people
across 80 countries.
Because of our unique supply chain capabilities,
we're the ones that are deployed
and bring life saving supplies and food
to all the people in need,
where there's no infrastructure,
there's no connectivity,
reaching some of the most challenging places
in the world.
- WFP is all about operations,
airplanes, trucks, emergency response,
where we work together with them to expand their capacity
to make better and more informed decisions.
- We are still operating in crisis mode
and then COVID hit on top of it all.
Because of the pandemic, next year,
we expect to serve almost 140 million people.
This is a massive increase to what we already had.
Our funding needs to grow,
and we only have secured about half of that.
- We have a saying internally that says,
"Nothing stands between WFP and a hungry child."
That's why we turn to the power of data.
Like many other large public sector organizations,
WFP's technology has grown over the years.
We have people who are suffering,
where the fight between life and death
comes to a very close decision.
How do we make sure
that the colleagues on the frontline get access
to better data at their fingertips?
That's why we partner with Palantir,
building a system that we call DOTS
to help give us a better operational picture
and really empower the entire organization from HQ
but also in the field to have the right data point
at the right time to make the right decision.
- It's putting the opportunity in the hands of those
who deliver in the most remote corners of the world.
This is where I need the food and when I need it,
just get it done.
- Today, DOTS is the cornerstone
of the WFP data ecosystem.
It allows WFP teams to cross collaborate
in the same platform together with each other
across business functions.
- One of the first workflows we've developed in DOTS
is called a "transporter evaluation score."
Every day, WFP relies
on a very large network of transporters.
Companies that show up with trucks,
load up the commodity - rice or maize or beans -
and bring it from point A to point B.
- Let's say that you're a logistics officer working out
of Somalia and you have a shipment
coming in tomorrow.
You need to know exactly how this transporter
has been performing in the past.
- Do they show up on time?
Do they lose food?
Do they deliver less than they said they would?
Doing this before DOTS
was a very, very complicated exercise.
- This is something that would take days to extract.
Today, all of that information is integrated.
So now, it take a couple of seconds, tops.
- This is an example
of one of the type of insights we're able to get.
- With DOTS, WFP has this operational knowledge asset.
And every time a field officer solves a problem in DOTS,
that asset gets more and more refined.
- The impact of the partnership
has been enormous.
To me, what is really exciting
is that people on the frontline,
serving the communities that have lost everything
can now spend most of their time
in much more transformative activities.
And that really is extremely inspiring for us.
- Doctors and ERs coast to coast.
What do they have in stock?
- Thousands of frontline doctors
are still not getting the equipment they need
- Can the medical equipment supply chain
be made to function?
- During the COVID-19 pandemic,
the World Food Programme was asked to support
the wider humanitarian community
under something known as
the Global Humanitarian Response Plan.
Under that plan, the wider humanitarian community
collectively bought
all their personal protective equipment:
face masks to surgical masks to gowns to rubber gloves.
Then ultimately, WFP was to organize the transportation
of those cargoes delivered
to 172 countries across the world.
Before DOTS came about,
the initial stages
of the operation were still very manual.
If I was, say for example, requested to move transport,
I would have had to raise a transport order,
pre-notify, for instance, the Dubai hub,
to confirm that he'd be willing to accept
that load for onward movement to South Sudan.
It would require an interchange between us.
Sending one another an email, put in a phone call,
shared Excel spreadsheets,
that might've gone back and forwards
two, three, four times.
And that person in Dubai
would not know what to expect,
unless I kept him up to date.
These were ultimately our Achilles heel.
- We realized that there was a space here for us to help.
We built out a Control Tower module in DOTS
that allowed people to see and track
and update their shipments.
We integrated airplane data,
warehouse data, shipment data,
and DOTS became the lens that you were able to
see at any point in time where your shipments were.
- WFP very rapidly organized and orchestrated
one of the largest response
the humanitarian sector has ever seen.
- Just in the first few months, we were able to deliver
more than 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth
of health cargoes in the most remote places in the world.
This is at the time
when airlines had grounded their flights.
WFP and humanitarian flights were taking off.
- If a border was closed,
if an airport was no longer available,
if a price would go up, DOTS stepped up.
And all of that data was being integrated
and really helped orchestrate not only our own response,
but also the response of a network
of more than 70 organizations.
- I think in the humanitarian sector,
you always feel like a small cog in a big machine,
but this time it really felt
that you were in the heart of the machine.
You were in a place where you are a pivotal point
in that supply chain and a lot of responsibility
rests on your shoulders.
To even just get one single load out every single day
could reach more beneficiaries
and save more lives.
- I have many pictures in my office
of people I met when I traveled,
of children who were receiving assistance
from the World Food Programme.
So, every time we tend to lose sight of what we do,
I stop to look at those pictures.
These are the people we serve.
They deserve nothing less than the best from us,
and we have that unwavering commitment
that drives us every day.
So, let's focus on how we deliver the best for them.
- Because of the power of DOTS,
we are going to have an organization
that is more intelligent, that is faster,
that is more responsive to the needs
of the community we serve.
- Every day, people are logging into the platform
and able to help those in need better
because of what we have done.
I joined Palantir because of our mission-focused work.
The partnership with WFP,
it's a direct testament to what this looks like.
- At the end of the day, data integration,
digital technologies, are just a means to an end.
And the end for us is that people who've lost everything
have a lifeline to get back on their feet,
that communities are rebuilt, that there is resilience,
that we have a world where everybody can have access
to health and education
and become a thriving member of society.