Humans in the Loop

12/10/2026

As co-winners of Dreampitch: Where Impact Wins at Dreamforce '26, we want to thank the judges, Suzanne DiBianca, Allie K. Miller, Dounia Senawi, and Keely Cat-Wells for their time, consideration, and for being part of this special milestone for our team. 💜

Huge appreciation also goes to the Dreampitch organizers, Camille Gray and Blair Silva, and to our friends and supporters at UpLink – World Economic Forum, Louisa Montagu-Pollock and Miranda Barker.

At Humans in the Loop, empowering people affected by conflict through dignified work opportunities goes hand in hand with delivering high‑quality, inclusive, and ethical data for AI. It was a privilege to share our work and vision at Dreampitch during the Dreamforce ’26 conference.

🌟 Discover how we put our mission into practice: humansintheloop.org

08/10/2026

🍎🌳 Apple trees look different in spring than in summer, across orchards, countries and growing conditions. For AI models to reliably recognize those differences, the training data needs to reflect them.

The University of Angers came to us with exactly that challenge: 225,110 objects annotated with bounding boxes across images of apples, fruitlets and flowering stages collected from multiple European orchards.

The dataset contributed directly to DeepPhenoTree, now used in a public data challenge and an open-source tool that helps breeders, farmers and agtech providers track phenological stages and guide pruning robots.

🌟 Ten conflict-affected annotators contributed to the project: eight based in Lebanon and two in Bulgaria. Creating professional opportunities for people affected by conflict is at the heart of what we do.

Read the full University of Angers case study: https://humansintheloop.org/university-of-angers-agricultural-ai-data-annotation-for-apple-tree-phenology/

05/10/2026

We’re co-winners of DreamPitch at Dreamforce 2026! 🏆🥳

Our CEO, Tess Valbuena, took the stage as one of three finalists to share our vision for empowerment, ethical and human-centric AI that creates meaningful opportunities for people affected by conflict and displacement.

Having that vision recognised on a stage like Dreamforce '26 was a remarkable milestone for us. We’ve always believed that the people behind AI, and the way its data is created, belong at the centre of the conversation. Our work is about putting that belief into practice.

This win belongs to our team, our beneficiaries, and the clients and partners who have trusted us and believed in what we’re building.

Congratulations to EatLove, our fellow co-winner, and to Infiheal, our fellow finalist. And thank you to the Dreamforce team for giving us the opportunity to share our work on such a global stage.

A proud day for all of us at HITL. Onwards and upwards! 💜 🚀

28/09/2026

A little glimpse into this month’s team building.💫 Last Friday, we put our general knowledge to the test with questions covering everything from geography and astronomy to history and more. 👀

The leaderboard kept changing throughout, and three winners were definitely happy with the results. 🏆😆

We spend most of our time working hard together on our projects, so it’s always nice to take some time to have fun, connect and get to know each other a little better. 💜

💼 Get to know the people behind HITL: humansintheloop.org

25/09/2026

9 years of Humans in the Loop, 9 things to be grateful for. 💜

Our CEO Tess Valbuena reflects on milestones and moments that have made these nine years so special for us. 🌟

🔗 Learn more about our work: humansintheloop.org

21/09/2026

🌟 Rama Hamada is a Syrian graduate of English Literature who was looking for ways to strengthen her career prospects from home. Through a recommendation, she found HITL Foundation's Career Counselling programme.

Through one-on-one sessions with HITL's Social Mediator, Rama worked on her CV, LinkedIn profile and interview preparation. The focus wasn't on rewriting documents, it was on helping her understand and communicate her own strengths honestly.

"The first session helped me learn more about myself, my soft skills, my hard skills, and how to present them honestly."

The results were immediate. Rama sent her newly developed CV to one company, she was invited for an interview the next day and got the job.

Rama has since helped a friend improve their CV and LinkedIn profile and recommended the programme to five others in her network. "I really wish everyone who wants to improve themselves would join this programme because they will find the missing parts."

💜 Read Rama's full story: https://humansintheloop.org/impact/case-studies/finding-confidence-landing-a-job-ramas-career-journey-with-humans-in-the-loop/

17/09/2026

Our CEO, Tess Valbuena, is taking the stage at Dreamforce 2026 in San Francisco, alongside some of the biggest names in AI and technology. 💥

At “Dreampitch: Where Impact wins”, Tess will be sharing the story of Humans in the Loop and Humans in the Loop Foundation: the work we do with AI companies to provide high-quality, ethical AI data, and our mission to create better opportunities and improve the lives of people affected by conflict and displacement through AI.

For the past nine years, our mission has been at the heart of our work, and seeing Tess take that story to Dreamforce is a pretty special moment for all of us at HITL.

We’re looking forward to seeing Tess share the Humans in the Loop story on a stage like this. ✨

Join us and watch Dreampitch live: https://lnkd.in/gNHjYgdq

10/09/2026

🎤 We are so excited to share that our CEO, Tess Valbuena, is heading to Dreamforce in San Francisco next week, September 15-17!

Tess will be joining Dreampitch - a Dreamforce stage highlighting leaders who are driving real-world impact.

If you are attending, we would love to connect.

And if you haven't registered yet, use code DF26BLAZER to save 25% on your pass. ✨ salesforce.com/dreamforce

09/09/2026

⚙️ Projecting 3D LiDAR annotations onto 2D camera images correctly is still one of the harder problems in annotation.

For the third part of our Tools We Love series, our ops and tech teams looked at two tools built for very different jobs: a fast, simple tool for research annotation, and a specialist platform built specifically for and camera-sensor fusion.

Nine years of annotating data across , , , , and industrial projects has taught us that the right tool depends entirely on the project.

🔗 Read the notes from the team on where each tool works best, and where it falls short.👇

Humans in the Loop provides continuous ML model improvement with human input: from dataset collection and annotation to model verification and edge case handling.

08/09/2026

🌟 Destin Buhulukiro is 26, a father and Congolese refugee living in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, where electricity and internet are not guaranteed. That's where he decided to build a freelance career.

Through HITL Foundation's Profile to Gig in 15 Days programme, he went from an untouched Upwork account to a focused, intentional profile built around his skills in graphic design, UI/UX and branding. One shift changed how he approached everything: "You are the solution to the problem the client needs to solve.”

🚀 Destin is now building Bethany Digital Agency in Kakuma, bringing the same digital work opportunities and training to other refugee youth in his community. He found a path and immediately started creating one for others.

On HITL's role in his journey: "They train us; they show us an opportunity; and they make sure we get that opportunity."

💜 Read Destin's full story: https://humansintheloop.org/impact/case-studies/from-kakuma-to-the-world-destins-journey-into-freelancing/