Equity through data analytics

This project was born in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, which has magnified the disparities that currently exist in our societies, especially in regards to the preparedness of countries to respond in novel situations. That is the effective administration of measures for policy-making-related responses in affected communities. 

The core part of the project will be focused on the development of algorithms using population statistics. Using Algorithms will enable us to anticipate possible implications of disease outbreaks in communities, the different degrees of the vulnerability of the victims, and the creation of simplified narratives from the data collected from the population.  The research aims to focus on population in Sub-Saharan Africa with Zimbabwe being the first area of concentration.

Thandeka Ruvimbo Chaka

An International Student from Zimbabwe currently studying at Luther College (USA). Thandeka is double majoring in Mathematics and Data Science with a minor in Computer Science.

According to Reuters (Reuters is collecting daily COVID-19 infections and deaths data for 240 countries and territories around the world, updated regularly throughout each day.) Covid-19 tracker, Zimbabwe is reporting 52 new infections on average each day with the highest peak of 5% recorded on January 13. There are currently 37 288 infections and 1538 coronavirus-related deaths reported since the beginning of the pandemic. To date, 222, 733 doses of vaccines have been administered which is approximate,0.8% of the country`s population. 

The impact of COVID-19 in Zimbabwe is relatively minuscule when compared to other parts of Sub-Saharian Africa like South Africa that has 927 new infections daily on average with 288,406 vaccines administered to date which approximate 0.2% of the country population. We do acknowledge the blanket view perspective the statics give us but in terms of statistical rigorous significance, it is relatively a naive summary of the impact of COVID-19. This leaves too much room for uninformed inferences of the affected communities in terms of urgency to the vaccines administration or even basic care to high-risk areas. Therefore, the research center aims to effectively deliver a clear data analysis of the COVID-19 global pandemic through algorithms that carefully address the different classifications within the population both affected and in anticipation of a further outbreak.

The direct beneficiaries of the initiative are the different sectors (cooperate, government, and non-governmental organizations) that are involved in the intervention and response measure of COVID-19. This will also help the different communities at large with emphasis on trying to illuminate the different degrees of vulnerability and urgency within the demographic.

Currently, as a team, we are in the research mode of understanding infodemic statistics in relation to the different geographical contexts within Sub-Saharan Africa. We are also currently creating a model on the partners that we will be willing to engage with and the relevant procedures to get in contact with them are currently underway.

A center of this kind would open up opportunities for employment, alleviating the high poverty rates in Masvingo. With the high unemployment rates in Zimbabwe, we are extending opportunities for young people to get employed after graduation. This would also serve as a ground for a possible collaboration for different sectors within Zimbabwe to improve the overall status of the country through innovations and development.

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Since this is a research center to be established, the first area of impact is within the research-related members in terms of their skills set that they would have gained from participation in the project. Their willingness to engage and create their own algorithms even beyond what our organization will offer will be our greatest impact.

Secondly, a more detailed analysis of infodemic statistics of firstly Zimambwe and then potentially other Sub-Saharan countries in terms of clusters per location will be widely available both on our social media platforms and basic google search.

Thirdly, we plan to get feedback from both the clients on our progress as an organization at the end of each project, with areas of improving our core highlight in the feedback loop. The sustainability of the project to be effectively carried out even in the months where all our team leaders are in schools will also be our milestone. External auditors will be introduced in terms of the financial part of the progress evaluation.

For the first three months, the research members will undergo thorough data analytics and programming skills courses (emphasis on R and python.)The next month or two after this we plan on letting them work with practice data from sites such as Kaggle or world data so that they also gain familiarity and confidence with the IDL software.

On the administration part of our organization during this first 4 months is when we plan on meeting with potential clients and drawing up a partnership. We will also be working on establishing our ethical standards as per the organization.

The remaining 8 months of the first year, will be on working immediately with different partners on their different data sets. Implementing, different measures to acquire the data and growing our social media page as an information resource.

Given a positive review and at least an 80% success rate in data analytics and client service, the next year or two will be into research in possible areas of expansion. 

Financial barriers,  inability to access data that we can develop real-life algorithms for. Furthermore, all the team members are current college students at their undergraduate level, therefore in the process of gaining substantial knowledge to improve our solution.

However, we do believe that with mentorship to provide guidance and a more realistic perspective on our ideas, this solution can be effectively implemented. Since all team members are fellow UWC alumni, in terms of expansion and collaboration we plan on using our network to achieve that.

None 

Trinity Challenge can help us achieve credibility as a research center that is nongovernmental among the different partners that we plan on reaching out to. In terms of accessing data and improving our business models, Trinity Challenge mentorship and possible partnership with Trinity Challenge members can be very helpful in contextualizing our solution and its implementation. Furthermore, it will provide us with an extra networking space for possible collaborations and areas of improvement.

Global Health Alliance

This would be a great partnership to establish our brand as an upcoming research center that focuses on global health. Moreover, we would benefit from the mentorship and guidance in helping us understand more about global pandemics.

HigherLife Foundation

An organization in Zimbabwe that deals with some of the vulnerable members of the community would help us identify the areas with little or no data collection in terms of updating population statistics. Furthermore, their experience as a foundation would help us on the different models we can implement to ours.