IBM is to help a number of West African countries to combat the spread of Ebola using a mix of mobile technology, data analytics and cloud computing as governments seek to stem the extent of the disease.
The platform works by collecting data from text and voice messages sent in by people on the ground to report cases. The messages can by pinpointed by location and used to identify connections and highlight emerging issues across the entire data set of messages. IBM uses the location data to create heat maps that correlate public sentiment with those locations.
The data from the messages and locations have been used to find 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.
Dr. Uyi Stewart, chief scientist at IBM Research in Africa, said that his firm 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," he said.
The system uses radio broadcasts to encourage people to get in touch and express their opinions. Cambridge University's Africa's Voices project uses the radio to incorporate questions into public service announcements to get 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 analysed and turned into valuable insight about the effectiveness of public service announcements and possible public misconceptions about Ebola."
IBM is currently looking to extend the work to analyse mobile phone signal data in order to monitor and track population movement enabling scientists to map and predict the spread of disease.
