Pinoy Dengue Case Predictor Mapping System Wins 2019 NASA Global Hackathon

A dengue case forecasting system using space data made by Pinoy developers won the 2019 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s International Space Apps Challenge. This Pinoy solution that makes space data accessible is one of the six winners in the Best Use of Data in the said competition.

Since dengue fever is a viral and an infectious tropical disease which resulted to 1,107 deaths from January 1 to August 31, 2019, Dominic Vincent Ligot, Mark Toledo, Frances Claire Tayco, and Jansen Dumaliang Lopez from CirroLytix developed a forecasting model of dengue cases with the use of climate and digital data, as well as through pinpointing possible hotspots from satellite data—the Project AEDES.

Using satellite spectral bands like green, red, and near-infrared (NIR),  indices like Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are calculated to identify areas with green vegetation, while Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) identifies areas with water.

In relation to this, extracted as coordinates through a free, open-source, and cross-platform desktop geographic information system QGIS, the combination of these indices will reveal potential areas of stagnant water which can possibly be a breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Further, the potential dengue hotspots will be shown in a web interface through the information that will be correlated from Sentinel-2 Copernicus and Landsat 8 satellites, climate data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PAGASA) and trends from Google search engines.

In the Philippines, Space Apps is a NASA-led initiative organized in collaboration with De La Salle University, Animo Labs, DOST-PCIEERD, PLDT InnoLab, American Corner Manila, U.S. Embassy, software developer Michael Lance M. Domagas.

Space Apps is also a celebration of the Design Week Philippines with the Design Center of the Philippines of the Department of Trade and Industry which is also globally organized by Booz Allen Hamilton, Mindgrub, and SecondMuse.

Meanwhile, the next hackathon will be held on October 2 to 4, 2020.

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