The Big Blue has therefore launched initiatives in Sierra Leone, where the virus has killed 1281 people, and Nigeria, a country that was recently declared Ebola-free by the World Heath Organisation. Nigeria had eight fatalities who succumbed to the deadly virus.
In Sierra Leone, the tech giant launched a citizen engagement and analytics system that enables communities affected by Ebola to communicate their issues and concerns directly to the government.
IBM’s new Africa research lab, in collaboration with Sierra Leone’s Open Government Initiative developed the system that enables citizens to
report Ebola-related issues and concerns via SMS or voice calls.
SMS and Voice Calls may prove vital 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.
“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.”
The deadly disease has killed over 1000 people within West Africa and stalled economic growth in worst-hit countries
“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 utilizing basic mobile phones to give voice to under-served 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.
The company has also donated its Connections technology in Nigeria to reinforce government’s preparedness for future disease outbreaks after it successfully curbed the spread of the disease.
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 therefore help to 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.
“Governments should constantly aim for proactive delivery of social services to citizens and by leveraging on technology, improved governance and better management of resources and assets can be achieved.” said Adebiyi Mabadeje, Honourable Commissioner for Science and Technology in Lagos State. “IBM’s SmartCloud grant to the Lagos State Government is a unique contribution that will enhance our capacity to respond to and better manage emergencies with deeper insights and know-how,” he added.
The work benefits from contributions from a number of partners including Nigeria’s Federal and Lagos State authorities, Sierra Leone’s Open Government Initiative, Cambridge University’s Africa’s Voices project, Airtel and Kenya’s Echo Mobile.
As part of its global efforts, 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 in order to create an Ebola Open Data Repository which will use IBM’s SoftLayer cloud technology to provide governments, aid agencies and researchers with free and open access to valuable open data related to Ebola.
The virus has killed 4922 people in West Africa, United States and Spain.
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