Crowds and Machines

The aim of the project is to develop a demonstrator “Crowds & Machines” (C&M) that provides strategic information concerning the impact of Covid-19 on food security and political (in)stability. Crowds & Machines enables decision makers to track the impact of Covid-19, design scenarios and act on those scenarios effectively. If successful, Crowds & Machines will assist governments, IGOs and international businesses during the outbreak of Covid-19 and prepare for the period when Covid-19 has been diminished. Crowds & Machines enhances and deploys BlackShore’s crowdsourcing platform Cerberus combined with machine learning to measure the impact of Covid-19 on food security and political stability. Specifically, Cerberus uses the power of the crowd (i.e. thousands of gamers) and serious game technologies to analyze satellite imagery. The results of the crowd consist of a training dataset that will be used as input for the machine learning system of 52impact to train the algorithms to classify different types of crops automatically and predict yields, which is essential to assess food security. The satellite-based output will be combined with economic data to provide a holistic perspective on food security and political stability. The target users of the Crowds and Machines demonstrator are policy and decision makers in Europe seeking evidence-based data and predictive tools to support their policy and/or program planning and operations. The value that we provide to customers with C&M is strategic information concerning the impact of Covid-19 on food security and political (in)stability. The strategic information enables decision makers to track the impact of Covid-19, design scenarios and act on those scenarios effectively. Crowds & Machines is designed to develop advanced machine learning, early warning and causal discovery tools that provide the following services: