Ayuda Venezuela 2026

The past few weeks have been incredibly hard. The crisis in Venezuela following several earthquakes has made it very difficult to focus or concentrate on anything other than trying to help from afar. I am sure many Venezuelans living abroad feel the same. Some of the worst affected areas are places that I used to visit frequently when I was living in Venezuela. I have great memories there with friends, family and the people who made those places special. The lives of those same people have changed forever. It is painful to think about, watch and hear the stories coming from the ground. This tragedy has kicked off a personal reset of what truly matters to me... life itself, good health, family and loved ones. Strong leadership is essential to overcome a crisis like this. Unfortunately, government bodies have not demonstrated the level of response that people had every right to expect. It is infuriating, to say the least. On the other hand, private companies and individuals have rallied with the spirit that characterises the Venezuelan people: empathy, unconditional support, hard work and, above all, love. Thank you to everyone who has helped, whether from Venezuela or from afar. Used well, it can help people coordinate support, make sense of public information and create better opportunities for everyone who has been affected. I am seeing first hand how people across the software industry are coming together to build solutions and help however they can. I want to thank Hugging Face, especially Merve Noyan and Suvaditya Mukherjee, for their support and for helping the different teams using technology to support people on the ground. With their generous donation of technology, I built Ayuda Venezuela 2026, a "bird's eye view" of the affected areas using public data. The Hugging Face Space brings together open satellite imagery, a before and after comparison, source backed affected building context from Microsoft AI for Good and HDX, and wider public signals from NASA, USGS, HOT/OSM and other trusted sources. It is intentionally a public, read only view. It does not accept personal information or pretend that automated analysis can replace the people doing the work on the ground. The demo above shows the core experience: compare imagery from before and after the earthquakes, explore affected building context and go directly to organisations offering support. The main goal for this experiment is to give people another perspective on the damage and the areas that have been impacted. If it helps one more person understand what has happened or find an organisation already doing the work, then it has served its purpose. This will be a long process with many phases, so ongoing support will be needed in many different forms. If you work for an organisation that can offer assistance beyond financial support, please reach out so we can coordinate and make the most of every contribution. Thank you.