• Audience
    Secondary school
  • Learning stage
    Stage 4, Stage 5

IBM EdTech Youth Challenge projects that help scientists and humanity combat pressing health issues, such as COVID-19, to support healthier lives and protect our region's biodiversity.

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Please note: entries to the IBM EdTech Challenge have now closed. The winning teams will be announced on Friday 12 November 2021.



The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified preparing for epidemics, the climate crisis and investing in health infrastructure as urgent health challenges for the next decade. Air pollution alone is estimated to kill 7 million people a year while extreme weather events fuel malnutrition and the spread of infectious disease.

How can new technologies in digital health using AI help us revolutionise our ability to not only address but prevent these urgent challenges?

Watch and read the information and definitions below to learn more about zoonotic diseases, the significant threat to global health and security they pose and the importance of combatting their emergence as a public health priority[1]. Below you will find examples of potential AI applications such as AI based virtual assistance, identifying illegal wildlife trade activity through classifying visual and audio content, and text and data mining for disease hotspot detection and prediction. There is also information on next steps of the challenge and additional resources to guide and inspire the focus of your IBM EdTech Youth Challenge project issue and serve as a springboard for further brainstorming ideas that can improve the health outcomes of our community.



AI and design thinking to combat health issues


COVID-19 and zoonotic diseases


The emergence of a new pandemic coronavirus has shown the world, across a matter of months, that an animal-borne disease can serve as a global disruptor on an almost unthinkable scale, bringing connections between wildlife, disease, environment, and our global society and economy into sharpest focus. Professor Kris Helgen (Chief scientist and Director, Australian Museum Research Institute)


Zoonotic diseases (germs that spread between animals and people) account for approximately 75% of all emerging infectious diseases today.[3] Professor Kris Helgen (Chief scientist and Director, AMRI) writes in COVID-19 and zoonotic diseases, that one of the vital scientific contributions made by natural history museums like the AM is the study of connections between animals and human diseases.

Large biodiversity collections from natural history museums are important resources for understanding the biology of pandemic diseases that arise from animals. They give us insights into the identification of disease sources and vectors (an agent that carries and transmits disease) and molecular information that helps in detection and surveillance.

The destruction and degradation of wildlife habitat, climate change impacts, urbanisation and wildlife trade all factor into the increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases. Are similar activities happening in your community? Can you identify an AI process to help scientists capture data or address risks of such issues in the IBM EdTech Youth Challenge?


How zoonotic diseases are transmitted

Understanding how human behaviour or impact on our local environment contributes to health concerns, or by capturing data that documents connections contributing to known diseases, could be a focus in your team's challenge: to predict potential sources of health concerns using AI.

Zoonotic diseases for example are transmitted when a pathogen (virus or bacterium) found in one species is passed onto a human host. The below diagram illustrates how a zoonotic disease can be transmitted, and could be translated into a machine learning tool like a virtual assistant or chatbot to diagnose or identify potential sources through queries to map species connections.


How animal viruses get into humans
More than 70 per cent of all new diseases emerging in humans are thought to have been caught from animals, some of which, such as bats, primates and rodents, might have lived with the viruses for thousands of years. Image: Matt Davidson
© The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald

Timeline of zoonotic diseases

The below timeline gives a snapshot of the geographical and animal origins of the most notable zoonotic diseases in the last 50 years. This represents existing research into past diseases that could be harnessed by AI to predict future scenarios. The occurrence of emerging infectious disease (EID) events have risen significantly over time and is thought to be driven largely by socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors. [4]


  • Spanish Flu

    The Spanish flu pandemic was the first true global pandemic and the first to occur in the context of modern medicine. The origins of the disease are debated with scientists believing it to have originated in either pigs or birds.

  • SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)

    SARS is a viral respiratory illness first reported in Asia and found to have been transmitted from civet cats to humans.

  • H5N1 (Avian flu)

    Avian influenza is a disease caused by infection with avian (bird) influenza (flu). These viruses occur naturally among wild aquatic birds and can infect domestic poultry and other animals species. The first known transmission of H5N1 to humans occurred in Hong Kong.

  • H1N1 (swine flu)

    Swine influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs that regularly causes outbreaks in pig herds. The first known transmission of H1N1 to humans occurred in Mexico.

  • West Nile Virus

    The West Nile Virus (WNV) is transmitted in nature between birds and mosquitoes. Human transmission is usually caused by infected mosquitoes.

  • Ebola

    Ebola first appeared in South Sudan and is a a rare but often fatal illness. The virus is transmitted to people from non-human primates, fruit bats, forest antelope or porcupines.

  • MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)

    MERS is a virus transferred to humans from infected Arabian camels first appearing in several countries in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

  • COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease)

    COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. The disease was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan and most researchers think it originated in bats.



Role of AI in health

Amidst the global health emergency caused by COVID-19, the opportunities for AI and machine learning applications to help in epidemic modelling, prediction and diagnosis is increasing. Some examples of possible applications are outlined below to serve as a springboard for further brainstorming ideas.


HOW AI CAN ASSIST IN HEALTH
Task Example
AI based virtual assistance AI can provide virtual assistance as a symptom checker to help users get instant and accurate medical information. AI systems can provide support to reach remote regions with limited access to healthcare as well as the translation of applications into any language.
Classifying visual and audio content Using social media data collected via APIs, AI can be used to identify illegal wildlife trade activity online by processing audio and visual content eg. pangolin scales or rhinoceros horns. Using metadata specifying geographic location and time stamps, AI can also inform us of trade patterns and routes over time.
Text data mining and processing By extracting and processing data from digital sources such as GPS, credit card transactions and social media, contact tracing information can be used to determine disease 'hot spots' and implement adequate control measures to break the transmission chain.

Next steps

Register to participate in the IBM EdTech Youth Challenge and review the Project Guide and Project Logbook. Follow the Project Guide steps to identify issues around health concerns and how AI technology and design thinking can be applied.


  • Problem identification

    Describe a local environmental sustainability problem.

  • Knowledge of AI

    Is there an AI solution to assist in solving this problem?

  • Understanding the user

    Who will benefit from the solution and how.

  • Brainstorm solutions

    Document how creative and critical thinking were used to brainstorm, with one solution being prioritised.

  • Data

    Identify potential data sources, and investigate a data sample and privacy issues.


Additional resources

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Fact Sheet:



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References

  1. Nature, Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases, October 2017
  2. WHO, Zoonoses, July 2020
  3. ICOPHAI, The global one health paradigm, November 2014
  4. Nature, Global trends in emerging infectious diseases, February 2008