Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Masdar Institute, and the University of Southampton are collaborating to tackle the MyHeartMap Challenge, using social networks and crowdsourcing.
Launched by the University of Pennsylvania, MyHeartMap Challenge invites members of the public to participate by submitting geo-tagged pictures of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) they see around Philadelphia, to create an effective location database of AEDs.
It is estimated that around 300,000 people die every year in the US from sudden out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, some of which could be prevented through the timely use of a defibrillator. The University of Pennsylvania has observed that the inability to locate AEDs in such emergency situations greatly reduces their life-saving potential.
The team or individual that finds and photographs the most AEDs in Philadelphia County until March 13 will receive the grand prize of $10,000. The competition has also flagged a number of ‘Golden AEDs’ - which have a $50 bonus for the first team or individual who photographs and submits a Golden AED to the contest.
Masdar Institute’s computer scientists Dr Iyad Rahwan and Sohan D’Souza and University of Southampton computational game theorists James McInerney, Dr Victor Naroditskiy and Professor Nick Jennings, will join MIT Professor Sandy Pentland and UCSD Research Scientist Dr Manuel Cebrian, aiming to solve the MyHeartMap Challenge – and they are inviting social networkers to be involved in the activity.
Dr Rahwan said: “Our team will use crowdsourcing to encourage people to report the location of AEDs, to verify other reports, and to recruit new participants. If we win, the money will be split among the participants who helped find defibrillators and the participants who recruited them with any left over money donated to charity.” Dr Rahwan recently co-authored a paper with the DARPA Network Challenge winners on their use of social networks to mobilize people to contribute to their team’s efforts. The paper was published in the prestigious Science journal.
Dr Naroditskiy said: “Our research is aimed at learning how to use crowdsourcing to gather complete and reliable information. Two distinguishing features of our approach are special incentives to involve as many people as possible and an emphasis on the verification of gathered information. We are very excited about the AED mapping task as both completeness and accuracy are of life-saving importance here.”
The team will use the challenge to test some of their theoretical research on social network mobilization and incentivisation as well as verification, which adds a new layer of complexity not yet seen in crowdsourcing challenges.
Dr Cebrian said: “To most people social networks are just a way to talk to their friends or share videos. But to scientists like us, they represent a unique way to form large teams of people to work in a coordinated way to achieve difficult tasks. If we can harness that power of social networks, then we can enlist countless numbers of helpful volunteers to canvass Philadelphia and seek out and verify the AEDs that are currently not geo-tagged or on any map. This information can later prove to be lifesaving for someone going through sudden cardiac arrest.”
The team has launched its own website to attract team recruits who will help identify as many AEDs as possible. Visit http://scailab.media.mit.edu/heartcrowd to find out how you can be involved.
Contacts
Masdar
Bader Al Zarei
Communications Manager
Public Affairs Department
balzarei@masdar.ac.ae
+971 02 8109372
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