FREETOWN, Sierra Leone
and LAGOS, Nigeria, Oct.
27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) has
launched several initiatives to help curb the spread of Ebola in
West Africa.
They include a citizen engagement and analytics system in
Sierra Leone that enables
communities affected by Ebola to communicate their issues and
concerns directly to the government; a donation of IBM Connections
technology in Nigeria to
strengthen the Lagos State government's preparedness for future
disease outbreaks; and a global platform for sharing Ebola-related
open data.
The efforts combine expertise from IBM's global network of
research labs with the company's years of experience in
humanitarian disaster response by applying mobile technology, data
analytics and cloud computing to help governments and relief
agencies as they seek to contain the deadly disease.
The work benefits from contributions from a number of partners
including Sierra Leone's Open
Government Initiative, Cambridge
University's Africa's
Voices project, Airtel and Kenya's
Echo Mobile.
Citizen Engagement in Sierra
Leone
IBM's new Africa research lab, in collaboration with
Sierra Leone's Open Government Initiative, has developed a system
that enables citizens to report Ebola-related issues and concerns
via SMS or voice calls. It provides actionable insight to the
government about the day-to-day experiences of communities directly
affected by Ebola to help improve its strategy for containing the
disease.
"For us to tackle Ebola, it is crucial to maintain an open
dialogue between the government and the people of Sierra Leone," said Khadija Sesay
Director of Sierra Leone's Open
Government Initiative. "IBM has enhanced our work on citizen
engagement through the use of innovative technology and opened up
an effective communication channel with the general public so that
we can learn from their input and create actionable policies in the
fight against Ebola."
Tapping supercomputing power and analytics capabilities via the
cloud, the system is able to rapidly identify correlations and
highlight emerging issues across the entire data set of messages.
As the SMS and voice data are location specific, IBM is able to
create opinion-based heat-maps which correlate public sentiment to
location information.
For example, it has already brought to light specific regions
with growing numbers of suspected Ebola cases which require urgent
supplies like soap and electricity, as well as faster response
times for body collection and burials. The system has also
highlighted issues with the diagnosis of Ebola empowering the
government to approach the international community to request more
testing facilities and equipment.
"As Africa's first technology research lab, we are uniquely
positioned to use innovation to help tackle some of the continent's
biggest challenges," said Dr. Uyi
Stewart, Chief Scientist, IBM Research – Africa. "We saw the need to quickly develop a
system to enable communities directly affected by Ebola to provide
valuable insight about how to fight it. Using mobile technology, we
have given them a voice and a channel to communicate their
experiences directly to the government."
The system uses radio broadcasts to encourage people to get in
touch and express their opinions. Cambridge
University's Africa's
Voices project has helped to develop a radio engagement
model, incorporating questions into public service
announcements to elicit feedback from citizens in both English
and Krio – one of Sierra
Leone's most widely spoken languages.
"Radio is a powerful medium in Africa but its potential to gather and analyse
audience feedback has not been fully seized," said Dr. Sharath Srinivasan, Director of Cambridge University's Centre of Governance and
Human Rights. "We are working with IBM to offer people across
Sierra Leone a channel to voice
their opinions and, crucially, to ensure that the data is rapidly
analyzed and turned into valuable insight about the effectiveness
of public service announcements and possible public misconceptions
about Ebola."
Telco operator Airtel has set up the toll-free number via which
citizens are able to send SMS messages.
"Mobile technology is Africa's
most powerful communications platform providing an important
channel for reaching large numbers of the population," said
Sudipto Chowdhury, Managing
Director, Airtel, Sierra Leone.
"As one of Africa's leading mobile
operators, we will do everything we can to ensure that mobile
technology contributes to tackling the spread of Ebola and we are
partnering with IBM to ensure the effective flow of information
between the government and the citizens of Sierra Leone."
The SMS data is anonymized by Kenyan start-up Echo mobile which
specialises in leveraging basic mobile phones to give voice to
underserved communities.
"We're working to make sure that the stream of messages from
patients, health workers and the general public can be used to
augment the response effort and provide a direct and near real-time
view of the situation on the ground," said Jeremy Gordon, Product Director, Echo Mobile.
IBM is currently looking to extend the work to analyze mobile
phone signal data in order to monitor and track population movement
enabling scientists to map and predict the spread of disease.
Technology That Facilitates Coordination
Nigeria has taken a leadership position in the
fight against Ebola and has recently been declared free of the
disease. To support the country's preparedness for future
outbreaks, IBM has donated its Connections technology to
Nigeria's Lagos State
Government.
Nigeria's Lagos State
Government hosts an Ebola Operations Center that coordinates
disease containment efforts on behalf of the Nigerian government
and other organizations.
IBM's technology donation will help strengthen the coordination
of public health emergency response teams and ensure that the Lagos
State Government is able to manage and respond to any new reported
cases of Ebola or future epidemics.
IBM's Connections technology has a proven track record in
humanitarian disaster response situations. It provides health
workers and administrators with a reliable and secure digital
platform to work together virtually and in person, enabling them to
securely share documents, identify experts, exchange video, chat
and audio messages, provide updates, tap into information via
mobile devices and hold virtual meetings. Storing information
securely and conveniently in the digital cloud means that vital
information can be accessed by authorized users anywhere.
IBM has previously provided similar technology in other crisis
situations around the world to support collaboration and
coordination amongst response agencies. In 2010, SmartCloud
supported a post-Haiti quake
effort called Colleagues in Care, which helped doctors in
Haiti learn from doctors in the US
and elsewhere. The Chilean Red Cross used the platform to establish
a disaster command center following the 2010 Chile earthquake. The platform was also used
by agencies in the US following Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and for
flooding recovery activities in Colorado in 2013.
IBM is broadly offering access to its IBM Connections
cloud-based platform to all government agencies and
non-governmental organizations working to stem the spread of
Ebola.
Ebola Open Data Repository
Globally, IBM volunteers
are leading a community effort to help identify, inventory and
classify all open data sources related to the Ebola outbreak and
are calling on organizations worldwide to contribute data.
The goal is to create a cloud-based Ebola Open Data Repository
which will provide governments, aid agencies and researchers with
free and open access to valuable open data related to Ebola.
To support the work, IBM volunteers helped organize a recent
Ebola Open Data brainstorming session in New York where members of the local tech
community met with health experts and aid organizations to develop
Open Data solutions to help tackle Ebola.
"Data can be a powerful resource for managing and mitigating
epidemics," said Jeanne Holm,
Evangelist for Data.Gov. "Governments and other organizations have
valuable open data that could help in relief efforts - about roads,
airports, schools, medical facilities and populations. Such
information can help to drive data-driven decisions during times of
uncertainty. IBM is playing a key role in this initiative by
helping to identify and gather more open data sources that might
inform decisions around Ebola."
Around the world, cities, states and nations are publishing open
data and creating new data supply chains and ecosystems to help
tackle national and global challenges. Many African governments
such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, South
Africa, Malawi and
Tanzania have joined the Open
Government Partnership to take advantage of published open data to
drive innovation and support better collaboration.
To learn more about IBM in Africa, visit: http://ibm.co/1evaCes
For images to accompany this announcement, visit: http://
bit.ly/1znYD2j
Contact information
Jonathan
Batty
IBM Global Labs
battyjon@uk.ibm.com
+44-7873-295615
Ari Fishkind
IBM Media Relations
fishkind@us.ibm.com
+1-914-499-6420
Charles Moyela
IBM Media Relations
charlesm@ng.ibm.com
+234 808 667 5257
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SOURCE IBM