A SUMup of ideas (GS Paper 3, Disaster Management)
Context:
- It is clear from the rigorous work of many scientists today that, going forward, even if dealings with nature are drastically improved, at least a few generations to come are likely to experience natural disasters with a frequency, intensity, and complexity far greater than the generations before them.
- Such challenges aren’t going away anytime soon and the best is to get better at dealing with them.
Natural disasters on rise globally:
- The FAO’s report, ‘The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security: 2021’ shows that there were 360 such events per year in the 2010s, compared to just over 100 in the 1980s and 90 in the 1970s.
- The frequency of climate, weather and hydrology-related disasters has increased, not the geophysical or biological emergencies except Covid-19, of course.
- The impact, too, has been unsparingly global be it the forest fires of Australia and California, heat and dust storms of northern India, or floods of South Sudan and Pakistan.
What if we had SUMups of start-ups globally that work on some aspect of managing natural disasters?
- There is no definition of a SUMup, a SUMup is a hypothetical bundling of complementary start-ups.
- Imagine start-ups combining intelligent computer algorithms to develop disaster management technologies that assess the risk associated with various disasters and simulate these events to prepare, prevent, and recover everyone involved.
Application of AI/ML:
- A Japan-based start-up, CERD-AR, developed an Augmented Reality (AR) application that gamifies the animations of disasters and provides disaster prevention drills to prepare people for evacuation and reaction in ultra-realistic settings.
- The application can simulate diverse kinds of disasters, a tsunami caused by an earthquake, flooding rivers, fire in densely populated complexes of wooden houses, and collapse of block walls.
- While these applications simulate real-time, interactive environments, a Palo Alto-based start-up, ‘One Concern’, built a digital twin of the world by analysing satellite images to predict natural disasters.
- The platform combines Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning (AI/ML) and supercomputers to develop seismic and flood technology for real-time prediction of flooding and assess the risk associated with various events.
- These start-ups operating in the realm of simulating disasters for preparation and prevention have come close to becoming unicorns as a result of corporations taking great interest in sourcing relevant technologies for implementing innovative solutions in disaster-prone countries.
- Emergency response and reconstruction activities must complement disaster prevention technologies to reduce socio-economic effects in any society.
Indian response in Turkey:
- Recently, an Indian start-up Garuda Aerospace deployed drones in Turkey for surveillance in the affected earthquake areas to identify trapped victims.
- Such technologies from developing nations like India have evolved to provide affordable innovations for disaster assessment and response mechanisms.
IoT innovations:
- The exponential rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) start-ups is paving the way for integrating sensors, smart vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies, and IoT networks, among others, for quickly planning the safest and most efficient routes to shelters for helping citizens affected.
- IoT innovations emerging from start-ups like HW Design Labs support disaster response teams in planning their operations effectively through deep penetrating ground sensing radars, wireless connectivity solutions, advanced tracking, and navigation services.
Emergency communication:
- Another start-up, MyResQR, provides emergency communication between victims and stakeholders. The smart QR code manages information and triggers SOS during emergencies by enabling first responders like ambulance services, hospital staff, and other emergency response teams.
Collaboration with India:
- Today, many countries want to train with the Indian disaster relief agency. The National Disaster Response Force talked of the growing interest in 30 countries, and the Interpol, to understand India’s disaster response model, and collaborate with India.
- Such coming together of nations represents an opportunity that can be responded to effectively through SUMups of global start-ups.
Conclusion & Way Forward:
- The opportunity in front of the Startup20 Engagement Group of G20 is to enable many such SUMups. While there can be micro and mezzo-level aggregations, the unique opportunity here is to build those that address the Sustainable Development Goals for the whole world.
- For instance, the SUMup on disaster management is about SDG 9, “Building Resilient Infrastructure”, and SDG 2, “Zero Hunger”. Returning to FAO, 26 per cent of all damage from natural disasters during 2008-18 was to agriculture.
- In the history of G20, for the first time, India have the opportunity to define collaborative mechanisms that could give rise to such SUMups. As the Startup20 Engagement Group takes off, this is one way to accelerate meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.
