Xprize: Pandemic Response Challenge

On today’s podcast I am joined by Toby Phillips who is the executive director of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford and Bret Greenstein, Senior Vice President of AI and Analytics at Cognizant to talk about the Xprize Pandemic Response Challenge.

The Pandemic Response Challenge is a $550k, four month challenge that focuses on the development of data-driven AI systems to predict CODI-19 infection rates and to prescribe Intervention Plans (IPs) that regional governments, communities, and organizations can implement to minimize harm when reopening their economies.

Summary of Podcast:

(0:29) Founding of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker project

(4:01) The origins of Cognizants AI response effort

(6:08) The creation of the Xprize Challenge and it’s goals

(11:29) The type of data Oxford collects and how they collect it

(15:53) Insights into the importance of sharing data and how it increase its value

(19:15) How is new data incorporated into the models and how they are retrained

(27:15) Human in the loop: The roles of humans and AI in this project

(31:22) Unexpected and counter-intuitive results

(34:33) The Oxford project as a model for addressing other global problems

(38:53) How Covid has changed business and policy leaders view towards data collaboration

(40:25) Last thoughts and takeaways