A 15-year old girl wins Climate Prize for AI-based fire warning system
A fifteen-year-old girl from the USA, Reshma Kosarajum, is the winner of 2021’s Children’s Climate Prize, with her Early Warning System to Predict Forest Fires using Artificial Intelligence.
Reshma developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that proactively predicts forest fires using meteorological data and other parameters. It takes into account both the weather in the region as well as other temporal factors to account for human behavior.
“Reshma represents the best of youth entrepreneurship: brave, innovative and solution-oriented. Her model uses AI and technology in an innovative and savvy way in order to accurately predict the risk of forest fires while also accounting for the independent variables of climate, weather and human behavior”, explained the Jury in their motivation.
Forest fires have steadily been increasing in frequency and intensity over the years. They are estimated to be responsible directly and indirectly for over 339,000 premature deaths worldwide every year and up to $350 billion in annual economic losses in the US alone. They result in forest degradation since they wipe out trees and vegetation cover, cause soil erosion, which can lead to secondary disasters like mudslides and the loss of microbial activity in the soil. Furthermore, there is a decrease in biodiversity since the habitats of many species are destroyed.
“I’m so happy and my hope is that this win will lead to more people hearing about AI against forest fires, and that it will become a universally accessible tool for predicting forest fires. I especially wish for people living in areas more prone to forest fires to be aware and make use of this project, as it could greatly improve preparedness,” says fifteen-year-old Reshma Kosaraju, winner of the 2021 Children’s Climate Prize.
The Children’s Climate Prize is one of the world’s biggest international climate awards for young innovators, entrepreneurs, conservators and changemakers and is awarded for the sixth time this year.
Apart from the winner, the other finalists were:
- Lesein Mutunkei (17, Kenya): Trees For Goals, Fighting deforestation in Kenya
- Fernanda Barros (16, Brazil): Fridays for Future Amazonia, Fighting for the environment and indigenous rights in the Amazon
- Yash Narayan (17, USA): DeepWaste, an easy-to-use mobile application that leverages powerful artificial intelligence algorithms to provide accurate and instantaneous waste classification.
- and Anjali Sharma (17, Australia): Anjali led 7 other students in a legal lawsuit, a class action against the environment minister of Australia for the imminent approval of the Vickery Extension Project, a proposed coal mine in rural NSW. If approved, over its lifetime the mine is estimated to burn 370 million tonnes of CO2, and dig up a total of 168 million tonnes of coal
Moonshot News is an independent European news website for all IT, Media and Advertising professionals, powered by women and with a focus on driving the narrative for diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.
Our mission is to provide top and unbiased information for all professionals and to make sure that women get their fair share of voice in the news and in the spotlight!
We produce original content, news articles, a curated calendar of industry events and a database of women IT, Media and Advertising associations.
