Omdena's AI Powered App for Malaria Prevention in Africa

Tackling real-world issues and global challenges such as climate change, public health diseases, and food insecurity have become predicaments too much to handle without collaboration, often resulting in organizations, companies, or countries working together to aid affected groups.

These collaborations, in many cases, require a platform equipped with specific resources to help support their cause, one being Omdena, a collaborative platform that dedicates itself to uniting organizations, companies, and civil societies as well as governments to solve real-world problems with AI-powered solutions.

Origin of Omdena

Founded in 2019 by Rudradeb Mitra and Michael Burkhardt, Omdena is a community-driven organization that utilizes its resources on AI and machine learning development. With its team of engineers, Omdena aims to help organizations and communities around the world solve challenges affecting millions of people.

A year prior to working on Omdena, Mitra worked with an Indian-based cleantech startup dedicated to building an AI-powered solution that identified houses in India suitable for solar panels. After being exposed to the startup’s clean energy cause, the dedication of the startup’s AI engineers, and the way AI was being utilized in the process, Mitra realized the significance of collaboration as well as artificial intelligence, pushing Mitra to build Omdena with Burkhardt.

Since it was founded, Omdena has conducted about 650 life-altering projects with over 20,000 collaborators from over 120 countries, working on solutions to disentangle as many real problems the world is facing as possible. By utilizing AI, Omdena has worked on improving solar adoption in Singapore, detecting wildfires in Brazil, and combating illegal deforestation in Romania.

Every project planned and proposed by Omdena is published on their website under the name Local Chapters, coupled with an application form for those who are willing to lend a helping hand and are qualified to work on the project based on Omdena’s requirements. Those interested are able to either join or lead a project.

One major project Omdena has handled and is currently working on again is malaria prevention, dedicated to the wellness and health of citizens in several African countries.

Solutions for Malaria in Africa

WHO states that, in 2022, 249 million malaria cases and 608,000 malaria deaths were found in 85 countries, with 233 million cases and 580,000 deaths detected in the African region. This life-threatening disease, which is spread to humans by some types of mosquitoes, affects children, pregnant women, travelers, and people contracting HIV/AIDS the most.

Already starting to become a prevalent public health concern in Africa since 2015, malaria cases worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While interventions such as the distribution of antimalarial drugs, the spread of insecticides, and the placement of mosquito nets were made with great effort, these methods proved not to work as effectively as hoped. Drug resistance and more aggressive mosquitoes, along with their resistance to insecticides, prompted Omdena to take action.

In 2020, Omdena worked with startup Zzapp Malaria’s team of 40 to create an algorithm model that identifies stagnant bodies of water where mosquitoes would likely exist and breed by combining satellite images, topography data analysis, and population density. With the AI-powered algorithm, public health officials were able to survey large African regions such as Ghana and Amhara to prevent malaria from spreading in a more swift and cost-effective manner.

With the severity of malaria heightening again a couple of years following Omdena and Zzapp Malaria’s collaboration, Omdena started a project on malaria once more, this time centered in Liberia, as efforts to stop malaria transmissions haven’t stopped the disease from claiming thousands of lives every year.

Omdena aims to develop an AI-powered app utilizing predictive modeling and forecasting techniques to identify high-risk areas of malaria outbreaks based on historical data, climate patterns, and human behavior. Using AI tools and machine learning algorithms, the app is also hoped to predict the timing and severity of future malaria outbreaks according to real-time data on weather patterns, mosquito populations, and human mobility.

By analyzing the behaviors of both nature and humans, Omdena and its at-the-moment undisclosed partner’s end goal is to decrease malaria transmission rates, optimize resource allocations for interventions, and provide capabilities of rapid responses and responses during outbreaks in Liberia. The app will also be equipped with data visualization tools such as maps, charts, or graphs for public health officials to act with more comprehensive knowledge.

Safety in Learning and Training

Omdena invites those in the field of AI to build connections and expose themselves to the world of data science whilst changing the world in the process by applying to become part of Omdena’s developer teams.

Designed as a collaborative platform, Omdena has comprehensive safeguarding policies that ensure a partner and collaborator’s safety from bribery, terrorism, human trafficking, and conflict of interest, as well as data protection.

For those just wanting to get into the world of AI and machine learning, Omdena also has a learning platform named Omdena Academy with pedagogical curriculums and courses on AI, machine learning, and data science. The platform is equipped with hands-on experiences and real-world case studies. Omdena accepts applications for instructors as well.

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