S'pore, IBM to develop predictive models on environmental concerns

Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) and IBM yesterday announced a three-year research collaboration and signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) under which IBM researchers will work with NEA to develop advanced modeling and predictive capabilities to address key environmental concerns in Singapore such as air quality, extreme weather events, dengue outbreaks and food poisoning incidents.

The collaboration will enable researchers from NEA and IBM's mathematical experts to harness the wide capabilities of advanced analytics including the ability to capture data in real time and turn this unstructured information into intelligence, or even predictive insight that facilitates smarter decisions, IBM said in a statement.

By enabling accurate forecasting, proactive measures can be taken to prevent unwanted events instead of simply reacting to events as they occur. For example, the forecasting capability will help NEA to better inform the public in advance of changes in air quality. 

Leveraging real-time environmental data from NEA's environmental sensor networks, the predictive environmental capabilities to be developed under the collaboration will help NEA officers to take timely and effective action to mitigate environmental pollution and public health risks.

The information gathered from the models developed under the collaboration will help other public agencies in their operations and also help the public make informed choices in their daily activities.

Through the collaboration, NEA and IBM also seek to engage with other public agencies and research ecosystem – to add to the vibrancy of the research community that is engaged in creating innovative leading-edge solutions ready to be tested and deployed, testing them locally, and deploying them worldwide.