Humanitarian crises from disease outbreak to war to oppression against disadvantaged groups have threatened people and their communities throughout history. Natural disasters are a single, extreme example of such crises. In the wake of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other such crises, people have ceaselessly sought ways--often harnessing innovation--to provide assistance to victims after disasters have struck.

Through this workshop, we intend to establish meaningful dialogue between the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) communities. By the end of the workshop, the NeurIPS research community can learn the practical challenges of aiding those in crisis, while the HADR community can get to know the state of art and practice in AI. We seek to establish a pipeline of transitioning the research created by the NeurIPS community to real-world humanitarian issues. We believe such an endeavor is possible due to recent successes in applying techniques from various AI and Machine Learning (ML) disciplines to HADR.