SidLabs Secures Global Spotlight at UN’s AI for Good Summit 2025 with Two Award-Winning Solutions Built for Justice and the Planet
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE · Geneva, July 29, 2025
SidLabs Secures Global Spotlight at UN’s AI for Good Summit 2025 with Two Award-Winning Solutions Built for Justice and the Planet
Geneva, Switzerland — In a year dominated by geopolitical debates over AI safety, commercial dominance, and synthetic ethics, one lab quietly redefined what AI ought to be. At the 2025 AI for Good Global Summit, the United Nations’ flagship platform for socially beneficial AI innovation, SidLabs captured both First and Second Runner-Up positions—an exceptional feat for a lean, independent tech lab.
Headquartered in the Global South, SidLabs is not an impact organization. It is a UN-recognized technology partner—a rare breed of AI systems designer and architect, quietly building some of the most ethically grounded and practically transformative AI infrastructure for humanitarian, legal, and ecological missions across the world.
“Our goal isn’t to ‘disrupt’ the world,” said Dr. Manpreet Kaur, Director of Strategy & Product, SidLabs Online LLP. “It’s to help restore it. We build tools for those already doing the work—activists, advocates, defenders, and changemakers. We simply give them more time, more clarity, and more agency through better technology.”
🏆 First Runner-Up:
Defensa+AI
Developed with Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA), Defensa+AI is an AI-powered alert and analytics platform helping to detect and prevent environmental crimes in the Peruvian Amazon. It ingests satellite imagery, field reports, and open data to generate real-time, low-cost alerts on illegal deforestation, land invasions, and ecological degradation—empowering frontline defenders, NGOs, and authorities to act swiftly and strategically.
It is, in essence, a planetary early warning system, designed not for profit, but for the preservation of Earth’s most vulnerable ecosystems.
🏆 Second Runner-Up:
LexAid
Built in partnership with the Swiss legal nonprofit AsyLex, LexAid is an AI-powered platform that generates legally grounded international human rights complaints for individuals who have endured severe human rights violations. These violations were not sufficiently considered at the national level, leading to the wrongful rejection of their asylum applications in Switzerland and exposing them to renewed risks of serious harm—including torture, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and racial discrimination— amounting to a threat to their life upon removal. Trained on relevant law and case precedent, the system drafts personalized appeals that are then reviewed by licensed attorneys—dramatically reducing the bottlenecks in asylum support, while maintaining legal and ethical integrity.
The Rise of “AI-Native” Infrastructure for Impact
SidLabs’ twin wins echo a broader shift in the global tech-for-good landscape. As highlighted by Jacek Siadkowski, CEO of Tech To The Rescue, the future belongs not to sprawling bureaucracies or VC-funded moonshots, but to AI-native mission infrastructures—nimble, ethically coded, and hyper-contextual systems designed from the ground up with AI at their core.
In this emerging paradigm, SidLabs plays a pivotal role: not as a service vendor, but as a long-term technology partner for organizations operating in high-stakes domains—law, land, and life.
“SidLabs is one of the few organizations building AI systems that are not just intelligent—but scalable, ethical, responsible and sustainable,” said a senior juror from the AI for Good Impact Awards selection committee.
What Comes Next?
Riding on the momentum of its Geneva success, SidLabs announced a roadmap centered around open knowledge, distributed stewardship, and ecosystem equity:
- Open to Partnerships for mission-driven impact organisations and leaders seeking tech support
- Launching The Founder’s Essentials Podcast aimed at building a community of technologists, legal innovators, and ecological stewards from underrepresented geographies for the global good in the age of AI.
- Deepening its collaborations with UN agencies, Indigenous communities, and legal coalitions working at the edge of systemic transformation
Far from scaling “AI for AI’s sake,” SidLabs is working to scale something more rare: interoperable trust. And in doing so, it may be crafting a new template for what truly responsible technology looks like.
📌 For Interviews & Media
Dr Manpreet Kaur
🔗 AI for Good Finalist Announcement →
About SidLabs
SidLabs is a UN-recognized technology partner to mission-driven organizations and impact leaders. It designs conscious, equity-first, and regenerative AI systems that supports impact organisations and systems change. Founded at the intersection of ethics, deep tech, and decolonial design, SidLabs builds for those building a better world.