ID: 1719
Presenting Author: Dominique Mvunabandi
Session: 626 - Disasters, Conflict and Impact Assessment: What is up, what is down, what is coming around?
Status: pending
Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Risk Reduction in Eastern Africa
In the 21st century, communities become increasingly aware of the largest threat to the ecology and biodiversity of the planet which is climate disruption and mass environmental degradation. This sufficiently influences the disasters across the globe. For Rwanda, disasters are caused by natural and man-made processes that are directly linked to the geographical, historical, and socio-cultural aspects of the country. The country’s disaster profile includes localized floods, landslides, droughts, and earthquakes. The need to prevent, identify, respond, manage and provide a post-disaster response is critical in reducing loss of life and destruction of property. Leveraging emerging technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) provides an opportunity for fast response and recovery during a disaster. AI shows great potential in supporting data collection and monitoring, reconstruction and forecasting of extreme events, and effective and accessible communication before, during, and after a disaster. In this regard, UNESCO has developed a Natural Language Processing based chatbot (AI4DRR) to relevantly support the development and integration of artificial intelligence innovations into strategies and action plans for disaster risk reduction in the community within Eastern Africa.
Ir. Dominique is the Head of Science, Technology and Innovation Department within UNESCO Rwanda National Commission.
He has over 15 years of experience of professional career STI related fields.
Coauthor 1: Samuel T. Partey