UPG Health Impact Hub

During a health crisis, the strength of local communities is a determining factor in ensuring adequate access to health resources and information and also: adequate response. Any lack of resources and/or networking connections makes an optimal response a herculean challenge.

 At United People Global (UPG), we propose a platform with two components: 1) an educational site to share verified information and 2) a mobile application with an Artificial Intelligence Chatbot to act as an accelerator for further health-related collaborations. 

Our solution will i) Safely connect stakeholders and community actors ii) Provide access to verified resources so that people can take adaptive action. iii) contribute to strengthening the ties that bind communities. By going global, our solution improves “readiness” in a network of communities and the ability for these communities to connect to each other further enhances the capacity to change lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that global health, a safe environment, and a thriving economy are intertwined, and safeguarding them is crucial for a wealthy planet. To promote inclusive access for all to health and information, it is urgent to leverage the power of local communities to promote actions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Community leaders1 are civil society’s actors that must be supported. Their understanding of local realities are often greater than governmental or private sector actors. Data collection through community leaders can effectively monitor with bias and can report the status of SDGs implementation without the setbacks found within governments. Armed with appropriate resources, local communities can quickly respond to local crises, especially our dedication during a global health crisis. Thus, the building of strong communities and equipping local leaders with proper skills and knowledge are crucial for the successful implementation of the SDGs. However, many countries are facing multiple systemic barriers2 in implementing their sustainability projects. Inadequate technical know-how, poor networking and communication skills, inability to recognize available resources, insufficient capacity to produce and share strategic information, or inability to engage the right stakeholders often leads to significant setbacks.

1.https://sustainabledevelopment...

2. https://www.un.org/sustainable...

The UPG Health Impact Hub has elements that are both simple and complex.

What is it? A: It is a website that promotes small, medium and large-scale actions that are related to the pandemic or the health-related challenge.

What is it? B: It is an app that uses artificial intelligence to connect stakeholders and health initiatives in local communities.

The technology behind the “website” is relatively simple and the quality of the output is related to the quality of the curation of the content.

The technology behind the app is an AI Chatbot that has the potential to evolve as we continue to make break-throughs in learning based algorithms. The knowledge already exists today for the app to make useful and helpful connections between people and initiatives and between people and people. As the solution scales, there will also be the opportunity to make connections between communities (and between people across communities).

As an important feature, in any outbreak of “fake news” or information distortion, such a curated platform provides safe spaces within communities, thereby adding to the resilience of our communities.

Target Population - demographics:

 - young (aged 18 to 35) and action-oriented citizens and activists

 - with a passion for health-related issues

 - living in communities in developing countries

In what ways are they currently underserved?

As mentioned above:

 - less knowledge than is ideal

 - less access to networks

 - less “voice”: they are not prioritised for “listening” ahead of any policy formulation or implementation

What are you doing to understand their needs, and how are you engaging them as you develop the solution?

A - We have already started working with them. United People Global (UPG) is a community-based organisation that has nurtured a tightly knitted global network with over 3,000 members within 100+ countries (worldwide) — including 1,558 self-identified community leaders — since its start in 2018.

Target Population - profile:

 - these young people are often courageous in their determination to “do something”

 - these young people are often facing resource-constraints: money is usually a binding constraint for their actions

 - these young people usually do not always have the education level or the access to the relevant knowledge for the actions that they take. Please note that there is often a minority within their circles who may have the required education level.

 - these young people often lack access to the privileged local networks that “make things happen”

 - these young people almost never have access to international networks

 - and so it is very possible for all but the most motivated to feel powerless and discouraged

B - In 2021, our largest initiative “UPG Sustainability Leadership Program” has trained 500+ young community leaders from 100+ countries. Our members voiced the challenges they have faced in their initiatives via virtual events, educational courses, and training programs designed and freely offered by UPG. Difficulties to recognize and connect with stakeholders and to fundraise are common. In addition, many countries with the strongest presence of UPG communities are also most affected by illness and deaths caused by COVID-19, such as Brazil (17 million cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases as of 7th June, 2021; Our World in Data) and India (29 million cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases as of 7th June, 2021; Our World in Data). Many members of the UPG community have indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic has further hindered their initiatives while trying to support the population and promote the crucial prevention needed to fight the pandemic. We recognized a strong need to improve networking skills of and opportunities for the young community leaders. Our virtual events and training courses have offered a safe space for our community members to bond and exchange, creating a supportive network with global outreach. Our solution aims to further facilitate the connection among community leaders, collaborators and partners in and outside the UPG community who are engaged in initiatives that tackle the effects of pandemic or other health crises using a user-friendly web-based platform built for our existing community and other communities.

C - Networking on a global scale is key in dispersing resources as well as accurate health knowledge. A simple, easy-to-use platform crosses the boundaries of language, wealth, size of an organization and connects the work of individuals with those undergoing the same hardships elsewhere.

How will the solution address their needs?

A - The solution addresses all of the unmet needs identified above.

B - The platform increases the capacity of community members and generates positive impact when implementing projects fighting the pandemic in poor regions touched by COVID-19. Because the need for a strong community for implementing sustainability initiatives is universal and given UPG’s global setup and reach, we can scale our solution to the global level. 

C - Importantly, UPG has already created a strong platform and community around COVID-19 with the creation of the COVID-19 ACTION HUB in March 2020 (https://covid19.unitedpeople.g...). This initiative will fuel not only the content, but act as a catalyst to our solution. As an example, the COVID-19 Action Hub gives the opportunity to individuals and organization to promote their initiatives - called ‘‘Featured Actions’’ (FAs). As of today, over 100 Featured Actions have been supported, from 41 countries and covering various SDGs. Interestingly the main SDG’s covered are primarily SDG 3, followed by SDG 2, 10 and 1. 23 % of the Featured Actions are from the African continent, 23 % from Europe while 18% are from Latin America and the Carribean. The population targeted by those FAs are the youth, women and vulnerable population as a whole. The actions cover a range of topics such as education, prevention or support of Community Health Workers . The data from this initiative gives us a strong foundation to leverage for the future development of our solution.

Link to the Featured ctions: https://covid19.unitedpeople.g...

We focus on local community leaders in low-income countries suffering from health inequality worsened by COVID-19 and thus potentially vulnerable to future health-related disruption. With an understanding of the local cultures and trust from their families and friends, well-informed community leaders can effectively spread accurate information, encourage educated health behaviors, and identify cultural beliefs underlying harmful behaviors.

To alleviate the pandemic, many community leaders are eager to host information sessions and provide credible health information for their communities, but lack necessary network and knowledge. 

We tackle this problem by offering a platform for networking and support and providing free educational health materials through our COVID-19 Action Hub initiative.  

UPG hosts many online events and activities to foster community building and fruitful information exchange. After a detailed analysis and feedback from community members, we identified the need for connection and accurate information. During the data collection phase (approximately 8 months) information was gathered through surveys, interviews, and feedback from participants and members which helped conduct the development of the initial structure of our platform. 

In addition, data was analyzed from local COVID-19 initiatives outside of the UPG community shared with us on our website. UPG has a global network with a particular focus on the global south. To test the solution, we chose communities with a perceived lack of access to both adequate information and platforms on health-initiatives.The current phase is developing the technical development of chatbot and mobile application and its evaluation tools.

Our solution is innovative because of its double approach to leverage the power of communities to combat the pandemic and other health-related developments by i) providing a safe platform that promotes small, medium and large-scale actions that are related to the pandemic or the health-related challenge (website) and an ii) offering a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to connect stakeholders and health initiatives in local communities. 

This approach combines solutions that are technically simple (website), technically complex (AI in the app) and that can all be scaled. Part of the appeal of our solution is in the target demographic that is usually highly motivated but often overlooked. Part of the appeal of our solution is the focus on community that can also scale to connect communities to each other. At scale, this solution would change the market and enable broader impact through the potential for unlimited connections between people, actions (projects/initiatives) and communities.

Current number of people we are serving: 3,000

The number we will be serving in one year: 8,000 (conservative estimate)

The number we will be serving in five years: 30,000 (conservative estimate)

These numbers are focused on the number of people that we will directly affect.

7 people are working in the COVID-19 Action Hub team

Diverse team, 6 different nationalities with strong experience in the fields of public health, digital health, sciences (Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Photonics), project management, communication community based initiatives but also in political sciences, important assets to embrace complexities with a transversal approach.

The COVID-Action Hub was launched in March 2020 and amplifies the positive impact of individuals and organisations worldwide during the pandemic. For example, a comprehensive informative platform to tackle the COVID-19 misinformation has been created.The work is collaborative and inclusive.

Team members have experience “in the field” in different countries (Colombia, Senegal, Brazil, Israël, France for example), with communities and also with people suffering from chronic and infectious diseases - and work done in health prevention, education programmes, supporting the communities in their daily hardships or developing an AI-Chatbot for people with haemophilia in Africa.

Awa Babington-Ashaye. Head of the COVID-19 Action Hub. Biochemist specialized in virology and molecular biochemistry. Digital Healthexpert

Pei-Hsuan (Xuan) Wu (Phd): Molecular Biologist - Scientific Content Manager and Deputy Head - COVID-19 Action Hub 

Juliana Breda Gomes: Content Manager and Digital Health Project Manager. Political Scientist and International Analyst

Bruna Silva : Project Manager and Featured Actions Coordinator  International Analyst and M.A candidate in Anthropology and Sociology 

Timo Schimming: Content Manager. MS degree in Philosophy.

Can Yao:  Associate Manager. PhD in Science, optics and photonics, mechanics, data science, and large project management.

Oscar Bohorquez: Associate Manager. Political Scientist, MS degree in development management and policy. PhD Candidate

Given our mission, United People Global is obsessed with diverse, equitable and inclusive leadership. The Chair of the Board of the NGO is female. 

There are more women on the Board than men. The Head and Deputy Head of the COVID-19 Action Hub team are women. Our community comes from all walks of life, from teachers in rural areas to Members of Parliament and so we take deliberate steps to continue building diverse, equitable and inclusive environments. Everything we do has gender parity has a requirement with the only permitted imbalance being where there are more women. For example the Class of 2021 UPG Sustainability Leaders trained 271 women, 251 men and 4 people who are "Third Gender, Neutral or Non-Specific." To ensure that everything that we preach is practiced internally, we use a proprietary framework called the UPG Action Guidelines, a set of behaviours that everyone aspires to and it explicitly includes specific provisions for "Diversity", "Dignity", "Independence" and more. Adhering to these UPG Action guidelines is in everyone's contract, including the President of the Foundation. Every month internal awards are nominated and voted on by the team to people who exemplify these Action Guidelines and so it is a part of our daily lives. We intend to continue to blaze a trail in this domain.