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World leading experts select finalists of inaugural The Trinity Challenge, powered by MIT Solve.
Cambridge, UK, June 1 — An independent panel of expert judges from global health, business, academia and the social sector have confirmed the names of the final 16 contestants in The Trinity Challenge. The applicants come from 61 countries and have leveraged data and analytics in novel ways for pandemic preparedness and response. The winners will be announced at a live streamed Awards Ceremony on June 25th 2021, with awards from a £6 million prize fund.
The live-streamed event will be a celebration of the winning solutions, with invited guest speakers and opportunities to network with leaders from our member organisations and The Trinity Challenge team.
The prize money is vitally important to the development of the winning solutions however it is far from the only outcome of The Trinity Challenge. The challenge's main contribution to global health has been the connecting of small teams with the world’s largest businesses, academic institutions and charitable organisations from across the world, brought together in one global challenge.
With governments and health leaders across the world focused on responding to the current crisis, many are also looking to strengthen public health systems to do better against COVID-19 and future pandemics. The Trinity Challenge coalition of 42 member organisations took practical action early last year, to speed up the development and deployment of data and analytics solutions for pandemic preparedness. They will announce the final prize winners on 25th June 2021.
The 16 finalists use innovations across modern data and advanced analytics to start solving practical problems that have cost so many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include:
Crowdsourced scientific insights. Providing digital tools to support farmers, community health workers and doctors, who are on the front lines of potential disease spill-over from animals and spread, enabling them to crowdsource large sets of data, in real time.
Optimised health response where it is most needed. Closing data and technology gaps in Low and Middle Income Countries, with novel and innovative digital tools, point-of-care diagnostics, and block-chain technology to track delivery of vaccines.
Predictive power of sewage and other data in the environment. Deploying leading-edge Internet of Things sensors, to measure the presence of pathogens, in sewage, in the air or among mosquitos.
Natural Language Processing to predict and respond faster. Rapidly creating up-to-date knowledge summaries by analysis of text via natural language processing, including news, disease surveillance reports, physician clinical notes, and publications.
AI and Machine Learning to sort through big data sets. Embedding artificial intelligence and machine learning to further our understanding of the emerging data, helping policy-makers make trade-offs or unlocking routine blood tests, as a powerful new surveillance tool.
The new charity is chaired by Dame Sally Davies and supported by leading businesses (such as Optum, GSK, Tencent, Reckitt, Legal & General, Facebook, Google, McKinsey & Company and others), charities (such as the Patrick McGovern Foundation, Internews, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others) and leading academic institutions (such as Northeastern University, Imperial College, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, The University of Hong Kong Medical Faculty, 3 Singapore Universities and others). A global Challenge was launched, with a prize fund of £6 million to reward the best solutions to identify, respond to and recover from disease outbreaks and epidemics, using modern data and analytics.
16 teams were shortlisted as finalists, out of 340 applications. All solutions use the power of data and analytics to manage disease outbreaks in new ways that can be more effective, less expensive and benefit more people and communities all across the world.
Dame Sally Davies said: "We have been looking for solutions from anyone, anywhere around the globe that would use data and analytics in a new and different way to identify, respond to and recover from disease outbreaks, with the potential to become an epidemic or a pandemic to help those in the global south and north. The response we have received has been overwhelming. It delivers on our members’ early vision, that a smarter, more cross-sectoral approach to data and analytics is key to building an effective, affordable and scalable response to the threat of infectious diseases.”
The finalists of The Trinity Challenge will be recognised at a virtual awards ceremony on 25th June 2021, where the winners will be announced.
