Signpost Attends NASA Lifelines Impact Accelerator at SatSummit

In March Signpost was accepted into the NASA Lifelines ready for impact program. This is a new initiative from NASA to foster connections between NASA and humanitarian organizations to increase uptake of NASA satellite and earth data, and increase the adoption of humanitarian organizations to earth data tools. This program culminated in a pitch at SatSummit in Washington DC to numerous funders about Signpost mapping technology. Alyssa Campbell and Liam Nicoll made a pitch to a panel of funders and an audience of satellite experts.

https://nasalifelines.org/ready-for-impact/

https://2024.satsummit.io/

Concept: Unearth NASA Lifelines Initiative

Introduction The Unearth NASA Lifelines initiative, spearheaded by Signpost, represents a groundbreaking digital public good that has garnered recognition through the UN SDG Action Award and the EU Humanitarian Prize. This initiative is dedicated to providing communities with timely and actionable information, enabling them to make informed decisions on critical issues. The program’s reach is extensive, impacting over 120 million people and engaging 15.7 million users across 32 countries.

Problem Statement As climate change accelerates, it is projected that by 2050, 1.2 billion individuals will be displaced due to its effects. The aid sector’s current response with reliable information is inconsistent and often fails to meet the predictive needs of the affected populations. Existing attempts to leverage geospatial data for proactive measures are hindered by a lack of technological and human infrastructure to scale effectively.

Opportunity Signpost is uniquely positioned to address these challenges with its established infrastructure and significant global reach. The initiative can deploy technology rapidly in response to crises and is developing SignpostAI, a Google.org supported project, to enhance multilingual chat and social targeting technology for humanitarian causes. Signpost’s centralized data allows for the testing and consolidation of learnings, positioning it as a digital public good with the expertise to transition geospatial humanitarian applications from isolated instances to a scalable model.

Vision and Scale The vision of the Unearth NASA Lifelines initiative is to harness social marketing technology and Earth-powered geospatial insights to deliver digital aid at scale. Signpost aims to expand rapidly into new countries, centralize crucial data for targeted assistance, and utilize AI to process humanitarian content and geospatial data for actionable interventions.

Features The initiative boasts several innovative features, including:

• AI Monitoring: Analysts and AI systems monitor satellite and geospatial data to inform targeted interventions.
• Social Targeting: Social data analysis guides the outreach strategy to the most affected audiences.
• Service Delivery: Provision of services and cash assistance to those in need, informed by data insights.
• AI Triage: AI Social Work Assistants offer information referrals, enhancing the efficiency of aid delivery.

Following this summit, Signpost will look into numerous satellite imagery/ geospatial concepts with experts from NASA and other mapping agencies.