AN EDINBURGH technology firm is helping to maintain the wellbeing of Somali refugees after collaborating with Unicef to monitor the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya through satellite imagery.
And following its work with Brainnwave, the charity is now planning what is thought to be the world’s first humanitarian data hub in the Scottish capital.
Highlighting the city’s growing tech and innovation ecosystem, Unicef said the hub could become a catalyst to trigger collaborative solutions to advance children’s rights using data analytics.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates there are 1.1 million internally displaced people (IDP) in Somalia with a further 350,000 Somalis living in the Dadaab camp, which the Kenyan government is attempting to close.
Unicef believes that the ability to track IDP movement in real time using satellite imagery will improve its capacity to predict population movement and therefore target its activities more effectively and efficiently.
Brainnwave, which operates a geospatial data marketplace, is able to facilitate access to satellite imagery that Unicef’s team of data scientists can then analyse.
Don Baker, co-founder and chief information officer at Brainnwave, said there was great synergy between the firm and the charity.
“Unicef is looking to expand its network of companies donating data. We have a platform that allows companies to upload and sell, and in this case donate, their data and we provide the technology that enables that to happen so everyone wins,” he said.
Natalia Adler, research policy planning specialist at Unicef was introduced to Brainnwave when the company visited New York as part of a trip organised by Datalab, the innovation centre set up by the Scottish Funding Council.
In December, Unicef and Italy’s ISI Foundation identified satellite imagery as being key to better understanding the situation in Dadaab, leading Ms Adler to contact Brainnwave, which asked its client, Airbus, to donate the required imagery.
“One thing starts in New York and goes to Somalia and then Italy and then has come Scotland, and Scotland then reached out to France,” said Ms Adler. “It’s a real connection of the dots for everyone to bring their piece of the puzzle. Globalisation and the increasing interconnection of people means these problems are not isolated.”
Unicef is now looking back at a year’s worth of data and receiving frequent updates. Ms Adler said she currently had data only for movement around the camp area, but is hopeful further donations of imagery will help collate a more detailed overview of Somalia itself.
“If we understand how people move we can co-ordinate relief assistance in a much better, more targeted way so we can assist the population where the need is greatest,” said Ms Adler.
The proposed hub project has its genesis in an initiative called Data Collaboratives, which saw Unicef partner with New York University’s GovLab to develop a methodology that connects socioeconomic problems with data science, harnessing the skills of public and private sectors, and academia.
Ms Adler, in Edinburgh this week to address the DataFest17 conference, said Unicef had chosen the city as the base for its humanitarian data hub because of the strength of its technology sector.
Unicef hopes the project will leverage the expertise of myriad sources to provide insight that assists refugees across the globe, connecting the dots between real problems and tangible solutions, while providing businesses with commercial opportunities .
Steve Coates, chief executive at Brainnwave, said he was extremely excited at the prospect of Edinburgh becoming such a hub. “For us as a data science business, it’s great to hear that global organisations like Unicef see the potential [of Edinburgh], and that just helps the whole Scottish data technology scene,” he said.
Calling it a form of matchmaking, Ms Adler said: “You guys have an ecosystem of problem solvers and data-rich companies so it would make sense to see Scotland as the epicentre of this international problem-solving for good.”
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