15 years old Reshma Kosaraju is from Saratoga, California, USA. When she first moved to San Francisco in 2018, smoke and pollution from a forest fire 320 km away made the air dangerous to breathe. it was so bad that she had to wear a mask for over a month! Firefighters put out the blaze, and the air eventually cleared, but it got Reshma thinking how long until there's another one?
THE IDEA!
Reshma says that she wanted to figure out a way to predict forest fires before they occurred and she hoped that this could save lives, money, and the environment. Back then, she only had a vague idea about how artificial intelligence (AI) worked but using online resources, she gradually taught herself everything she needed to know. She then gathered information about the weather and climate from automatic weather stations situated around the USA.
Next, Reshma combined meteorological (weather) data such as temperature, wind speed, and humidity with info about human behavior to create an artificial intelligence system that could predict forest fires with almost 90% accuracy!
SUCCESS!
Amazingly, Rehsma's 'early warning system' is now being used by firefighters in California! Using her AI they're able to predict where and when forest fires will occur. They're able to reach fires more quickly, save more lives, and reduce the amount of toxic smoke that each blaze produces. Wow! So what now?
Reshma explains excitedly that she thinks making it into an app would be the next step and then everyone would be able to access it and it could become useful all over the world.
She says that she is so happy to have won the Children's Climate Prize!
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
Reshma is brave, innovative, and solution-focused. She has created an extraordinary and creative solution, to a huge human problem, with the potential to save lives all over the globe.
App to identify waste for Recycling!
"Waste mistakes are a big problem", says 17 years old Yash Narayan from San Carlos, USA. He says that he was shocked when he went to a local recycling center and saw how many recyclable and compostable materials were in the landfill pile like plastic and food waste. People really don't know what they can recycle. Of the 2 billion tonnes of waste, people generate each year, only around 15% is recycled.
A BETTER WAY
Yash says that once he saw the problem, he knew there had to be an easy, accurate, low-cost way for people to access the right information, exactly when they needed it. So, he created DeepWaste, a smartphone app that tells users whether or not something is recyclable! All users have to do is point their smartphone camera at a piece of waste. Then, the app uses artificial intelligence to work out what the rubbish is, and which bin it can go in. Simple!
Yash reports that we found people are 50% more accurate at throwing their waste away correctly if they use DeepWaste. Clearly, he is not been wasting his time!
Head to deepwaste.ai to find out more and download the app. By contributing images of waste, contributors help teach the technology and increase its accuracy.