Malaria is a potentially life-threatening disease that has been causing around 396 000 deaths in Africa each year. In fact, 90% of the total malaria-related deaths in the world occur in Africa. To assist in the fight against malaria, Israeli firm Zzapp has brought their Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology to Africa, to give Africa a chance to fight the disease with their innovative advancements, an area Israel is well known for. Let’s find out more about Zzapp, as well as their win of the prestigious Watson Prize.
Zzapp, founded in Jerusalem in 2016 by Arnon Houri-Yafin, uses Artificial Intelligence to create malaria elimination strategies and then delivers these strategies directly to the affected areas using a mobile app. In 2017, Zzapp partnered with a malaria control company, AGAMal, to assist in the mapping of areas. Through the use of the Zzapp app, more water bodies were detected and this, in turn, helped reduce the mosquito population in the area, compared to the usual pen and paper methods.
The map-based app uses AI to predict stagnant water bodies caused by rainfall and then guides the field workers to manage the treatment of the area with pesticides. The guides use the app when on the ground to scan the fields, find the bodies of water and then upload the location to the system so that the spraying teams can treat them accordingly. The app is well suited to be used in Africa as it runs on low-cost phones and requires very little connectivity.
The Jerusalem based start-up has won first place in the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE Competition, which saw the team getting a 3 Million Dollar prize, and the People’s Choice Award for the “The Most Inspiring Team”. The AI XPRIZE challenge, which is sponsored by IBM Watson, recognises initiatives that use Artificial Intelligence to tackle some of humanity’s most pressing challenges in areas such as healthcare, education, global development, and exploration. Zzapp plans to use the prize money to further eliminate malaria in Africa.
Currently, Zzapp is working on using their tech to assist Ghana, Tanzania and Zanzibar in eliminating malaria. Zzapp is embarking on an ambitious project to completely eliminate malaria from São Tomé and Príncipe within just two years. Zzapp hopes that by showing the success of their solution, they will be able to sign African countries and governments up as paying customers.
Find out more about Zzapp
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