Agriculture Program Lead, The AI Access Initiative

About The AI Access Initiative

We're at an inflection point in artificial intelligence – presenting both tremendous potential opportunity and risk for people in developing countries: rather than allowing the poverty gap to expand, low-income countries have an opportunity to leapfrog development milestones with AI-powered innovations. Incubated at Evidence Action, we’re launching The AI Access Initiative, an organization focused on scaling AI-enabled ‘big bets’ to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of people in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). 

We will operate at the intersection of global development actors, top AI labs, and leading researchers to drive meaningful access to the benefits of AI for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty globally. We will create “public good,” open-sourced playbooks, toolkits, and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. Given the scale of opportunity, we expect our portfolio to expand substantially, but to start, we’re scaling two programs focused on AI in Agriculture and AI in Health.

We are led by former Evidence Action CEO Kanika Bahl, a founding member of Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, and advised by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer; Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; and Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google. This work builds on Evidence Action’s track record reaching 530M+ people with cost-effective, evidence-based programs across 9 countries in Africa and Asia, with a focus on last-mile delivery.

Our Approach

We’re scaling AI-enabled big bets to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of individuals living in poverty. We will focus both on delivering near-term, tractable direct impact and supporting governments to establish an enabling environment for the ‘AI for Good’ ecosystem, including: 

• Scaling “big bet” AI interventions to impact tens or hundreds of millions, such as delivering AI-enabled forecasts to smallholder farmers to improve yields and earnings, leveraging AI to dramatically improve medical diagnosis and treatment, implementing frontier systems to identify and mitigate disease outbreaks, or putting personalized AI tutors into the hands of students to drive reductions to system-level educational attainment gaps. As part of this work, we will create “public good,” open-sourced playbooks, toolkits, and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. When relevant, we will partner with leading AI labs to shape technical offerings, including adapting for underrepresented languages, bandwidth constraints, etc.
• Partnering with governments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to drive regulatory changes, policy, and investments necessary to unlock beneficial use cases at national scale, while proactively mitigating the downside risks of AI.

Building on our recent analysis of near and medium-term AI opportunities in LMICs, we are advancing the highest-scoring interventions through a rigorous vetting process, including evidence reviews, cost-effectiveness analyses, risk assessments, and early operational/technical scoping. We are excited about the opportunity to deliver, and are now running deeper analysis on opportunities in global health.

The Role

We are seeking a rigorous, high-ownership, and fast-paced Agriculture Program Lead to join our founding team and lead the design and execution of our Agriculture portfolio: starting with AI-enabled weather forecasting and advisory services for smallholder farmers, with potential to expand into adjacent agriculture interventions over time.

You will play a pivotal role in translating cutting-edge forecasting science into government-ready solutions at scale, bridging worlds between AI labs and research institutions (e.g., university forecasting groups), global development partners, frontline implementers, and smallholder farmers across LMICs.

We're entering a new phase in global development and AI where the next five years may have an outsized effect on the next century of impact. History shows that without a clear driver and coordinated action, complex innovations in the developing world are at risk of languishing or taking decades to drive uptake. This is an opportunity to ensure that AI's breakthroughs reach those who stand to benefit most yet are at greatest risk of being left behind.

You will:

• Own and lead the Agriculture program strategy: Set the multi-year vision and annual workplan to reach tens of millions of smallholder farmers with high-quality, AI-enabled forecasts and advisory services.
• Drive state and national government partnerships: Build trusted relationships with ministries of agriculture, state-level governments, and meteorological agencies to enable forecast dissemination at scale, with a focus on institutionalization over time.
• Manage delivery partner relationships: Coordinate with implementing partners and research collaborators to ensure forecasts are delivered cost-effectively and at high quality.
• Design and oversee scaling pilots: Launch and evaluate work across new dissemination channels (SMS, WhatsApp, radio, telco partnerships) and new forecast types (e.g., dryspell, short-run), with rigorous learning agendas.
• Translate across stakeholders: Serve as an effective bridge among forecasting researchers, AI labs, NGOs, funders, and government counterparts; communicate technical concepts crisply to non-technical audiences.
• Build and lead the agriculture team: Recruit, coach, and manage country leads, state-level staff, and partner teams; cultivate a high-performance, high-accountability culture.
• Drive learning and quality: Embed measurement, feedback loops, and cost-effectiveness analysis into the program; partner with M&E researchers to build the evidence base over time.
• Operate in ambiguity: Chart paths forward in new geographies and problem spaces with urgency, rigor, and pragmatism.

Requirements

The ideal candidate is an exceptional Agriculture Program Lead with strong initiative, agriculture or rural development experience, and the ability to drive outcomes in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment. Given the startup nature of this work, we seek contributors with high throughput, strong work ethic, and willingness to lean in and work extended hours. Ideal candidates can excel as both an individual contributor and team leader.

You will likely have:

• 5+ years' experience as a builder in international development, with a strong preference for direct experience in agriculture, weather forecasting, smallholder advisory services, agricultural extension, value chain interventions, or rural last-mile delivery. A proven track record of significantly scaling organizations and/or programs to deliver last-mile impact at the farmer level.
• Training or early career experience in a high-rigor environment (e.g., top-tier management consulting, high-growth NGO program leadership, strategy/econ research) and the ability to rapidly get up to speed in new technical areas including AI/ML forecasting concepts.
• Demonstrated success leading agriculture or rural development programs from idea to scaled delivery, including managing multi-stakeholder coalitions with governments, research institutions, NGO implementers, and private sector partners.
• A track record as a strong people manager and builder: able to set clear standards, empower others, and cultivate a high-performance culture across distributed and field-based teams.
• Experience working with Asian and/or African governments to drive large-scale change, with a strong preference for direct experience working with Indian state governments, ministries of agriculture, or national meteorological agencies.
• High EQ and the ability to influence across diverse partners, from AI/forecasting researchers to frontline delivery staff to senior government officials.
• Strong fluency with AI tools, and eager to experiment, learn, and adapt to emerging technologies.
• Comfort with ambiguity and fast iteration; can define and test hypotheses, adapt quickly, and maintain focus on impact.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to synthesize complex technical ideas into crisp narratives for different audiences.
• Willingness and ability to travel extensively internationally (~20-40%), with significant time expected in India and other priority geographies.
• Passion for the mission of ensuring that the benefits of frontier AI reach the world's poorest populations, while mitigating its downside risks.

Position Location

This role location is flexible anywhere within the United States for fully remote candidates. Please note this role requires significant travel (~20-40%) to partner countries.

We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of a U.S. employment visa at this time. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. for roles based in the U.S.

Evidence Action is an Equal Opportunity Employer with a commitment to diversity. All individuals, regardless of personal characteristics, are encouraged to apply.

Benefits

The expected role range for this US position is listed below. We consider multiple factors when determining the base salary for a role, including but not limited to: role scope, program budgets, internal equity, and a candidate's qualifications and/or prior experience. 

Note: Pay and benefits will be commensurate with the role specifications, local statutory requirements, and the cost of labor in the markets where we operate.