The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the potential of natural disasters to inflict wide-scale damage to human life and the economy. While the worldwide neighborhood efforts to handle the effect of this pandemic, other natural disasters continue to trigger damage and further death. Raising awareness and structure strength towards natural catastrophes, that are impacting lives worldwide, has actually never been more important.

The need is particularly excellent in the Asia Pacific. APAC is situated in the most seismically active location worldwide, and almost half of the world’s natural disasters occur in the Asia Pacific. Between 2014 and 2017, natural disasters have affected 650 million individuals and taken 33,000 lives in APAC. The economic damage is similarly complicated– China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the top four natural disaster-prone countries in Asia, are expected to lose $380 billion each year in between 2016 and 2030 as an outcome of natural disasters.

How technology can help in natural catastrophes

Technological innovation has played a progressively essential function in advancing advancement across a series of markets; FinTech, InsurTech, MedTech to name a few. There is big capacity for innovative technology to have a key role in catastrophe preparedness; through D-Tech (DisasterTech).

There are five significant kinds of natural catastrophes, specifically geophysical (e.g. earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and volcanic activity), hydrological (e.g. floods), climatological (e.g. wildfires), meteorological (e.g. cyclones) and biological (e.g. pandemic).

Numerous tech solutions can help federal governments, communities, and services minimize the impact of these catastrophes. Early alerting systems can supply important time to evacuate locations at threat, while maps that render real-time information can help citizens and very first responders browse safely and efficiently.

These developments can turn the tide for many individuals in risky situations. In 1991, bad interactions and inadequate preparations left the villagers in Chittagong region of southeastern Bangladesh without any warning of the approaching hurricane. The cyclone eliminated over 135,000 people and left 10 million homeless.

Nearly three decades later on, on May 21, 2020, Bangladesh and Eastern India were hit once again by the season’s very first tropical incredibly cyclone Amphan. The casualties, nevertheless, were considerably lower due to a much-improved disaster action method, through upscaling of early warning systems, developing public awareness, and imposing structures and shelters. 6 million individuals were effectively evacuated to shelters and less than 100 deaths took place.

Other tech options can be utilized to prioritize resources and help, restore interaction and electrical power supply, offer medical assistance, track and trace individuals, and disperse food, water, and sanitation.

More recently, we are seeing using tech in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Huge information analysis on navigation searches are being used to reveal travel patterns and patterns to anticipate outbreaks, while track and trace phone apps are used to determine individuals that may be contaminated.

The role of investors

While many view efforts in catastrophe readiness as humanitarian in nature, the options to disaster durability will not come entirely from the non-profit sector. The technological innovation that exists in the personal sector might currently have some of the answers, with a number of companies currently generating interest from private financiers in this area. Examples consist of One Issue, a synthetic intelligence platform that determines durability and predicts the impact of disasters, and Shield, creator of an AI-powered robot that is capable of self-governing outside and indoor intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations. Both companies finished Series B fundraising in 2019.

Like any start-up, tech services that handle catastrophe readiness and healing require scalability, market gain access to, infrastructure costs, and R&D to flourish. VCs and private financiers can utilize their competence and resources to end up being active partners in developing D-Tech options that are both profitable and save lives.

Safe Steps D-Tech Awards to support solutions

Identifying the potential for tech options in disaster readiness, Prudence Structure developed the Safe Steps D-Tech Awards in 2019, in order to identify and support start-ups with scalable options that could secure lives in the past, during, and after natural disasters.

In 2015, the competitors received around 60 applications representing a large range of technologies. The winner, who got USD $100k funding, was FieldSight, a digital platform used to monitor the quality of infrastructure projects in remote areas to lower the threat of destruction when a natural disaster occurs. FieldSight is now utilized as a tool for satisfying the United Nations Workplace for Project Provider (UNOPS) project requirements globally.

Israel-based SeismicAI, a commercial-grade earthquake early warning system, was the very first runner-up. Seismic AI’s goal is to change outdated seismic models with special physics and artificial intelligence systems and was chosen by Microsoft’s AI for Great accelerator programme in April 2020. These are just some of the appealing tech solutions the D-Tech Awards have actually supported.

With the need for disaster innovation solutions being greater than ever, Vigilance Structure, in partnership with e27, AVPN, Antler, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, National Geographic, and others, will be releasing the next Safe Steps D-Tech Awards in November 2020 to discover and support lifesaving innovations.

The Safe Steps D-Tech Awards intends to support options for catastrophe durability, whether through a private-sector tech start-up or a not-for-profit social enterprise. Identifying the various objectives and income models of these business, the Safe Steps D-Tech Awards will provide two categories for application (earnings and not-for-profit) and judge in accordance with these objectives. If you have an interest in the capacity of D-Tech or would like to discover how you can contribute to this growing area, please take a few minutes to offer your insights here.

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