Lacuna Fund

Today, we are pleased to announce 14 new Lacuna Fund grantees. In 2023, we launched our first Climate and Forests call for proposals within our existing Climate domain. From the Galapagos to the Congo Basin, these teams will work to create machine learning datasets that advance efforts across the forestry domain to understand, mitigate, and adapt to climate change.    We are grateful to Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH's "FAIR Forward – Artificial Intelligence for all" programme on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for their funding of these projects.    We are also very grateful to the Technical Advisory Panel that helped us select these wonderful grantees: https://lnkd.in/gF5NMevM    Read the full announcement and learn more about these teams! https://lnkd.in/gmQQrXfQ #ML #AI #Climate #Forests #OurVoiceinData #fillingdatagaps

Highlights from 👇 Day 3 at #MICCAI2024: Championing Health Equity A key focus was on advancing Health Equity, a mission central to CAMERA. The Health Equity Panel featuring Farouk Dako, Mercy Nyamewaa Asiedu, Ph.D., and NAAMII Nepal offered profound insights into bridging gaps in healthcare through technology and innovation. These discussions resonate deeply with CAMERA's mission to foster inclusive, equitable healthcare solutions through AI and digital health. 🎙️ In the CLINICCAI at MICCAI Keynote, Dr. Anazodo emphasized the critical role of equity in AI-driven healthcare and how lived experiences shape more inclusive innovation. 🤝 Building new connections with passionate advocates for equity was a highlight of the day. We are excited to continue these discussions, reach out if you'd like to collaborate on innovative projects that promote health equity through AI ! #CAMERAatMICCAI #HealthEquity #AIForGood #DigitalHealthInnovation #MICCAI #InclusiveHealthcare #CLINNICAI

Research Project Documentary Video Releasing Soon! In many parts of the world, especially in the Global South, preventable diseases like diarrhea continue to claim the lives of many, particularly children. For over two years, we have been working on this project,  AI-assisted smartphone-based microscopy to detect parasites in vegetables, water, and stool samples, that cause diarrhea which is funded by Lacuna Fund and our team has developed datasets and trained AI models to identify two key parasites, Cryptosporidium and Giardia. This technology, if further advanced, has the potential to address critical global health challenges and save countless lives, in resource constraint settings like Nepal. If you want to know more about NAAMII's project and how we're leveraging cutting-edge AI research and transforming global health with AI. Stay tuned for our upcoming documentary! Special thanks to Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences (KIAS), National Public Health Laboratory in Janakpur, Nyaya Health Nepal, Bayalapata Hospital in Achham, and Kathmandu Institute of Child Health. #AIForHealth #ResearchEducateInnovate #AIInnovation #NAAMII #TransformingGlobalHealthWithAI

Darlington Akogo recently presented at the Google Research Africa Health & AI Workshop, where he shared insights on Moremi AI, a cutting-edge generalist AI doctor. He also contributed to the panel discussion titled "Bridging the Gap: Access to Healthcare in Low-Resource Environments," addressing the potential of AI to revolutionize healthcare access in underserved areas.

New Dataset Alert! We have released our Parallel Corpora for Kiswahili and Kidaw'ida, Kalenjin and Dholuo - 3 languages spoken in Kenya. The datasets contain parallel sentences between the corresponding local languages and Kiswahili. We also have voice recordings based on the datasets hosted at @mozilla Commonvoice Luo: https://lnkd.in/dSb7p7Cv Kalenjin: https://lnkd.in/dZ7reKAH Kidaw'ida: https://lnkd.in/d6YtckBF This has been made possible through Lacuna Fund for NLP datasets. Find link to dataset here: https://lnkd.in/d62xA8_g Audrey Mbogho Dr Andrew Kipkebut PhD KenCorpus #kencorpus #nlp #corpus

Calling Innovators & Researchers! Exciting opportunities await at the AI in Infectious Disease Workshop 2024 on 5-6 Dec in Amsterdam! We encourage research paper abstract Submissions and Innovation Showcases Don't miss out—Deadline: 4 Oct 2024!   More info: https://amededu.co/3zFIzj

We are excited to share key highlights from our recent dissemination workshop on the AI-assisted smartphone microscopy project, funded by Lacuna Fund led by NAAMII, in partnership with Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences (KIAS), Provincial Public Health Laboratory (PPHL) Janakpur, Kathmandu Institute of Child Health (KIOCH)-Damak, Jhapa and Nyaya Health Nepal Bayalpata, Achham, designed to automatically detect diarrhea-causing parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia. This project addresses an urgent public health challenge by offering a low-cost, accessible diagnostic tool to help prevent deaths caused by diarrheal outbreaks in rural communities of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) such as Nepal. The workshop began with a welcome speech by Udit Chandra Aryal, Project Manager at NAAMII, followed by an introductory presentation by Dr. Bishesh Khanal, Director and Research Scientist at NAAMII. Mubina Kc, Brand Manager at NAAMII, presented a video documentary that highlighted the rationale behind the project, the work done to date, and the potential future impact if further developed. Dr. Bhanu Neupane, Professor at Tribhuvan University, delivered an insightful presentation on the practical applications of smartphone microscopy, while Safal Thapaliya, a Research Assistant at NAAMII, provided a detailed project summary, highlighting key findings and future directions for research. The event brought together experts from the scientific and healthcare communities, sparking meaningful discussions on how collaborative efforts can enhance public health in Nepal. Funded by Lacuna, this project is also focused on creating fair and inclusive health datasets, with the goal of reducing bias and promoting equitable healthcare outcomes globally. The video documentary will be released soon. #NAAMII #AIinNepal #ResearchEducateInnovate #AIForGood #TransformingGlobalHealthWithAI

It was an honor to join Lacuna Fund's Grantee Convening in New York last week to kick off #ClimateWeekNYC! For the past year and a half, our team at Thinking Machines Data Science and our partners EpiMetrics, Inc. , Manila Observatory, and PACSII developed the CCHAIN dataset, an open, validated, linked dataset of up to 20-years worth of climate, health, socioeconomic, and exposure variables in the Philippines. Our work with Lacuna Fund aims to fill data gaps in the intersection of climate and health for vulnerable communities. It was great for Pia Faustino and myself to share our milestones and learnings, but more so to learn about what our fellow grantees are working on in the #climate x #health, climate x #energy, and climate x #forests thematic areas in other parts of the world. Shout out to the grantees I got to connect with Alex Quistberg, Jose Cordova-Garcia, Joseph Telemala, PhD, and many more! Congratulations and thank you again to the Meridian Institute team Jennifer Pratt Miles, Katrina Gehman, Adela Briansó Junquera ++! It was lovely meeting the team in person. If you are interested in or are in need of training data for climate, health, energy, and/or forest use cases, I encourage you to follow Lacuna Fund. Many of our fellow grantees are near completion and will be sharing their work to the public in the coming months. If you haven't seen our CCHAIN dataset, check out our blog here: https://lnkd.in/gCBt4Bx6 #OurVoiceInData #ClosingDataGaps

This year’s #ClimateWeekNYC is definitely a memorable one for our team at Thinking Machines Data Science. Not only did we get to share our work with Lacuna Fund , but also our work with Conservation International and Climate Change AI. Since 2021, Pia Faustino and our Geospatial team had been working with Dane Klinger’s team to codify and automate their Climate Smart Shrimp processes for sustainable production and mangrove restoration. Then in 2022, it was with Climate Change AI‘s Innovation Grant that we were able to take the project to another level - build a Machine Learning model to generate a new data layer for Southeast Asia that we couldn’t find from open sources. Having led both Lacuna Fund and CCAI projects focused on using AI for climate solutions, it felt really special to talk about the work we do and meet likeminded folks bridging data and tech gaps for those who need it the most. While we recognize the limitations and risks of AI and open data, it’s amazing to be able to share this piece of the puzzle - a result of thoughtful, collaborative, interdisciplinary work. Shout out to Joshua Cortez and Shannon Hood for presenting our work and to Lucian C. for joining us! And of course big, big thank you to the CCAI team, Priya Donti, David Rolnick, Nadia A. ++!

Exciting News! We’re thrilled to announce a new partnership between Vulavula, powered by Lelapa AI, and Zindi! Together, we're launching a new challenge on the Zindi platform! Data scientists, AI enthusiasts, and problem-solvers — get ready to tackle a real-world challenge, sharpen your skills, win prizes, and make an impact! Stay tuned for more details! #DataScience #AI #TechInnovation #ZindiChallenge #Partnership #Zindi