Pinoy team wins NASA award for Space App COVID-19 challenge

A group of data analysts in a Philippine-based social impact data analytics company has won in the 2020 NASA Space Apps COVID-19 Challenge.

Out of 1,422 submissions worldwide, the prototype created by five data scientists from a Philippine-based social impact data analytics company, topping this year's NASA space app challenge.

"The app prototype we created was for the Integrated Assessment Challenge of NASA. It mainly measures the economic impact on countries using satellite data like night lights, nitrogen dioxide, and mobility data from COVID-19," shared Helen Mary Labao-Barrameda, one of the team members of GIDEON [Global Impact Detection from Emitted Light, Onset of COVID-19, and NO2].

"The hackathon itself happened on a weekend last May 30-31. We got news that we were shortlisted as a global finalist — 40 lang yung na-shortlist sa buong mundo — last July then the winners were announced this month lang," she added in an interview via email in August 6.

Aside from Labao-Barrameda, the other members of the all-Filipino team who are  all from CirroLytix, include: Nick Tobia, Miguel Oscar Castelo, Theresa Rosario Tan, and Kristel Joyce Zapata.

CirroLytix  is a data firm providing analytics solutions to help governments, researchers, NGOs, and social enterprises leverage their data value chain to achieve positive change.

They also won the Best Use of Data Award and the Euro Data Cube Award. 

"The team survived by going on video calls and working together for 48 hours. Because of the pandemic, virtual event lang siya or purely online unlike the usual hackathons which have a physical location dapat," Barrameda said.

The app, encoded in a prototype website in the meantime, has been designed for the policy makers assessing the economic impact of COVID-19 in a country.

"Usually kasi yung GDP ng bansa four times a year lang nade-detect. Tapos kung lumabas yun, huli na para gumawa ng economic decisions. Dito sa app namin, napre-predict siya ng mas maaga. As soon as you access the app, ideally, meron na siya prediction," she said.

"Para siyang traffic light system in forecasting the impact ng COVID-19 sa bansa. Green for kayang-kaya, yellow for moderate impact, and red for needs critical action," she added.

The NASA Space Apps Challenge is an annual event where a Filipino team has won for three years in a row.

“It’s an honor to win in this challenge during a very trying time for us Filipinos. We are humbly hoping that our contribution can somehow make a difference or add solutions to this pandemic we are facing now.” —LBG, GMA News