How we work
baena.ai is a remote-first practice. It is run by Jesús Baena from Andújar, Spain, and Kyiv, Ukraine, with trusted collaborators brought in per engagement. This page describes how the work is organised, so a client, a partner or a prospective collaborator knows what to expect before we start.
Remote by default, present when it matters
All work is delivered remotely unless an engagement specifically needs someone on the ground. In-country missions (assessments, workshops, surge support) are scoped and priced as such, with travel and duty-of-care arrangements agreed in writing beforehand. Remote work is not a fallback: the tools, the portal and the working rhythm are designed for it.
Hours and time zones
Core availability is 09:00–18:00 Central European Time, Monday to Friday. Standing meetings are placed in the overlap with the client's time zone; East Africa, West Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe are all comfortable. Asia-Pacific and the Americas are workable with early or late slots agreed in advance. Emergencies are answered as emergencies; everything else is answered within one working day.
Where the work lives
Every engagement runs through the client portal: one place for status, deliverables, meeting notes, shared documents and invoices. It replaces email threads for anything that needs to be found again. Messages inside the portal are tied to the piece of work they concern.
Data handling
The practice handles beneficiary, protection and otherwise sensitive material as a matter of course, so the defaults are set for that case rather than the easy one.
Client communication, document storage and the portal run on encrypted services under our own control, hosted in the EU. Confidential material is processed on local AI models on our own hardware; it does not reach a third-party AI service. Personal data is processed under GDPR and, where the client's own standards are stricter (IASC Operational Guidance on Data Responsibility, ICRC Handbook on Data Protection in Humanitarian Action, donor-specific rules), the stricter standard applies. Data is deleted or returned at the end of an engagement, on a schedule agreed in the scope.
Access to client material is limited to the people working on that engagement. Collaborators sign the same confidentiality terms as the practice itself.
Human sign-off
AI accelerates the work but never signs off on it. Everything that reaches a client is reviewed, and where necessary rewritten, by a person. The same rule applies to any tool we build: an AI-assisted step is designed with a human check where the output matters.
Collaborators
The practice is small on purpose. When a piece of work needs skills beyond one person (a second language, a specific technical stack, in-country presence), it is delivered with named collaborators, introduced to the client, working under the same terms and through the same portal. Collaborators are engaged per project, remotely, and paid on delivery; there are no employees.
Tools
Open source and self-hostable by default, so nothing built for a client depends on a subscription the client cannot control: Docker, PostgreSQL and PostGIS, n8n, Metabase, KoboToolbox, Nextcloud, Caddy and Tailscale, among others. Clients keep the code and the data. Where a commercial service is the better answer, it is proposed with the trade-off spelled out.
Open tools
Part of what we build for our own field work is released to the sector for free, self-hostable, with no account, no subscription and no data collection beyond what the tool needs to run. chat.baena.ai and UA Maps are the current ones; more follow as they mature. Local NGOs with no budget can start a conversation regardless; we find the way.
Working with us
Every engagement begins with a short scoping conversation and ends with a written scope, deliverables and a fee. Most assignments are sized to fit within a client's direct-procurement threshold. Local NGOs with no budget can still start a conversation.
Contact: [email protected] · baena.ai/contact
Last updated September 2026.
