LATEST TECH NEWS: Google expands AI-powered flood alerts to cover India. 1 other thing and a trivia you need to know today, September 2, 2020

These latest stories from the tech space will keep you updated with trends today.

1. Google expands AI-powered flood alerts to cover India

Google, today announced intent to expand use of its flood prediction device to cover the whole of India, a 500,000 square kilometer space, serving over 240 million people. Two years ago, Google had collaborated with the Central Water Commission of India, Israel Institute of Technology, and Bar-Ilan University, to pilot a flood-predicting model in Patna, a small portion of India. The project which was a part of its Flood Forecasting Initiative, saw the instrumentation of artificial intelligence (AI) to predict flood around a given area.

According to the tech company and its partners, the model could predict riverine floods with 75% accuracy during monsoon seasons. After the 2018 pilot, Google expanded its use last year to target more than 11,000 square kilometers along the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers. With floods being one of the most common (and deadly) natural disasters in the world, accurate flood forecasting, hence, becomes a desirable goal. Experts stated that every year, floods are responsible for tens of thousands of fatalities and hundreds of millions of displaced homeowners.

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Tech Trivia:

Which tech platform’s mission statement is summarised thus: our motivation is addressing the biggest challenges facing information professionals today: discovery and access.

A. Twitter
B. Google
C. LinkedIn
D. Wikipedia

Answer: See end of post.

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2. African e-health startup Healthcent wins contract from UK’s NHS

Cape Town-based e-health startup Healthcent has won a contract with the United Kingdom’s National Health Services (NHS). The startup, which is behind the Signapps messaging platform, will provide its software as a service (SaaS) communication platform for the management of clinical communication to NHS Trusts. Before now, healthcare providers use Signapps to confidentially communicate and share clinical updates on patients, enabling appropriate responses by practitioners in real-time as well as facilitating more generalised communication.

Read also: LATEST TECH NEWS: S.African startup launches pre-accelerator program to empower women. 1 other thing and a trivia you need to know today, September 1, 2020

Speaking on the development, experts noted that the advantage of Signapps, particularly in the treatment of patients with COVID-19, is that only essential workers need to be physically present with the patient, allowing other members of the care team to collaborate in real time remotely. The three year old messaging platform has built a strong local track record, having been established in numerous areas, including the Chris Hani Baragwanath Paediatric Burns Unit, stroke units within the Life Hospital group, and sub-acute care.

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Tech Trivia Answer: Wikipedia

With the above adapted mission statement, Wikipedia today is the 5th most visited website on the entire internet; has 500 million monthly visitors; records 8000 views per second; has become the #6 top-referrer to all scholarly articles online with millions of citation clicks per month; contains over 29 million citations on the English Wikipedia alone.

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