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Westchester-Based IBM Works To Help Stop Spread Of Ebola

ARMONK, N.Y. -- IBM Corp. has launched several initiatives to help curb the spread of Ebola in West Africa.

IBM has launched initiatives to help curb the spread of Ebola.

IBM has launched initiatives to help curb the spread of Ebola.

Photo Credit: File

The initiatives include a citizen engagement and analytics system in Sierra Leone that enables communities affected by Ebola to communicate their issues and concerns directly to the government; a donation of IBM Connections technology in Nigeria to strengthen the Lagos State Government’s preparedness for future disease outbreaks and a global platform for sharing Ebola-related open data.

The efforts combine expertise from IBM’s global network of research labs with the company’s years of experience in humanitarian disaster response by applying mobile technology, data analytics and cloud computing to help governments and relief agencies as they seek to contain the deadly disease.

The work benefits from contributions from a number of partners including Sierra Leone’s Open Government Initiative, Cambridge University’s Africa’s Voices project, Airtel and Kenya’s Echo Mobile.

IBM’s new Africa research lab, in collaboration with Sierra Leone’s Open Government Initiative, has developed a system that enables citizens to report Ebola-related issues and concerns via SMS or voice calls. It provides actionable insight to the government about the day-to-day experiences of communities directly affected by Ebola to help improve its strategy for containing the disease.

Nigeria has taken a leadership position in the fight against Ebola and has recently been declared free of the disease. To support the country’s preparedness for future outbreaks, IBM has donated its Connections technology to Nigeria’s Lagos State Governmen,  which hosts an Ebola Operations Center that coordinates disease containment efforts on behalf of the Nigerian government and other organizations.

IBM’s technology donation will help strengthen the coordination of public health emergency response teams and ensure that the Lagos State Government is able to manage and respond to any new reported cases of Ebola or future epidemics.

The goal is to create a cloud-based Ebola Open Data Repository which will provide governments, aid agencies and researchers with free and open access to valuable open data related to Ebola.

To learn more about IBM in Africa, visit: http://ibm.co/1evaCes  

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