Programme
Fellowship Programme
An 8-week professional development programme that helps professionals from NGOs, non-profits, governments and international organizations build practical capabilities in analytics, AI and decision science.
About the Fellowship
The ABW Fellowship Programme is an 8-week professional development programme that helps professionals from NGOs, non-profit organizations, governments and international organizations build practical capabilities in analytics, AI and decision science.
Designed for participants with little or no technical background, the Fellowship combines four weeks of expert-led training with four weeks of mentored project work. Throughout the programme, Fellows apply their new knowledge to a real organizational challenge, learning how to identify opportunities for analytics and AI and translate them into practical solutions that improve decision-making.
Every Fellowship is supported by ABW’s ecosystem of universities and industry partners. Leading researchers, data scientists and practitioners contribute as lecturers, mentors and coaches, giving Fellows access to world-class expertise and a growing international community of professionals using analytics and AI for societal impact.
Is the Fellowship for you?
The Fellowship is designed for professionals who want to lead analytics and AI initiatives within their organizations, regardless of their technical background. We are looking for participants who:
Work for an NGO, non-profit, government or international organization
Have identified an organizational challenge they want to address
Are motivated to build practical analytics and AI capabilities
Can commit to the full eight-week programme
Are eager to learn from peers and expert mentors
No programming experience is required.
Key concept
What is Prescriptive AI?
Most organizations use data to understand what happened or to predict what might happen. Prescriptive AI goes one step further and answers a harder question:
“Given what’s happening and what’s likely to happen, what should we do next?”
By combining data, predictive insights and mathematical optimization, it recommends the best course of action while respecting real-world constraints such as budgets, capacity, equity and time.
Typical decision challenges
How do we allocate scarce staff, vehicles or financial resources?
How can we reach the most beneficiaries with a limited budget?
Where should we locate our facilities or services?
How should we distribute food, medicines or other essential supplies?
Which routes minimize travel time, costs or emissions?
How can we organize the collection of waste, donations or reusable products?
What is the best plan when demand or supply is uncertain?
How the Fellowship works
The Fellowship combines structured learning with hands-on application. Rather than learning analytics in isolation, Fellows immediately apply new concepts to a real challenge from their own organization, supported by mentors from ABW’s academic and industry network.
01
Starting Week
Selection
We select a cohort of professionals with high-impact challenges, strong motivation and a commitment to applying analytics and AI in their organizations.
02
Weeks 1–4
Expert-led Training
Fellows build a practical foundation in analytics, AI and decision science through live online sessions, interactive workshops, case studies and practical assignments. Throughout the training, participants refine the organizational challenge they will work on in the second half of the programme.
The curriculum covers:
Data science & visualization
Business intelligence
Machine learning
Generative AI
Optimization & Prescriptive AI
Data governance
Responsible AI
03
Weeks 5–8
Mentored Project Work
Fellows apply their new knowledge to a real organizational challenge, supported by an individual mentor from ABW’s academic and industry network. Working with experienced practitioners and researchers, they explore the problem, assess available data, develop a solution design and show how analytics and AI can improve decision-making.
04
Online, end of week 8
Fellowship Showcase
The programme concludes with an online Showcase where Fellows present their work and receive feedback from mentors, experts and fellow participants.
What Fellows leave with
Practical skills
Analytics and AI skills you can apply in your organization straight away.
A solution design
A design for a real organizational challenge, developed with expert mentoring.
Confidence to lead
The confidence to lead analytics and AI initiatives, even without a technical background.
The ABW ecosystem
Access to mentors, peers and future learning opportunities across our network.
A global community
200+
Professionals
60+
Organizations
34
Countries
100+
Analytics and AI projects
Projects span public health, education, humanitarian action and climate. Today, Fellows form a growing international community that keeps exchanging knowledge, collaborating across organizations and building on one another’s experience long after the programme has ended.
Join the next Fellowship
Applications open through periodic international calls. If you want to build practical analytics and AI capabilities while working on a real organizational challenge, we would love to hear from you.