Artificial Intelligence-Based Decision Support System for COVID‑19 Mobile Assessments and Optimal Supply Services During the Pandemic
The proposed project aims at transforming Canada’s response and preparedness posture against COVID‑19 with the following unique, feasible and transformative research objectives: 1) Designing realistic predictive models of community spread through mobility behavior of communities, 2) Development of an AI-empowered preparedness and planning framework against pandemic outbreak on vulnerable regions, 3) Development of AI-backed decision support systems for supply services during the pandemic. The results will enable monitoring, modeling and AI-based projections for the deployment of assessment centres alongside the required supply services. Providing AI-empowered digital services to decision makers will enable different levels of governments to make proactive strategies so to facilitate management and logistics for Canadians. Recent pandemic crisis due to COVID‑19 outbreak has uncovered two facts: 1) Fragility of supply chains, 2) Vitality of effective strategies for rapid assessments against the outbreak as it is not possible to test the entire population. The project outcomes will provide an AI-backed software service to maximize the assessed population at risk in the shortest possible time based upon the risk maps and with limited resources. In a situation where citizens are encouraged to self-isolate and minimize their social interactions, the agility of supply chains become vital to provide the medical and essential supplies with optimal strategies. Given these challenges, the partnership between uOttawa and Gnowit Inc. will contribute to COVID‑19 research through the field of applied machine learning research by developing innovative methods to predict risk scores of multiple zones. Furthermore, the partnership between uOttawa and Lytica Inc. will enable to fill in the missing piece required to fully automate the real-time modelling of supply services during the pandemic. Therefore, once completed successfully, the project will contribute to the resolution of COVID‑19 crisis through: 1) improved ability to model community spread, 2) fast maximization of the tested (suspected) population, 3) effective use of available assessment equipment, and 4) AI-backed decision support for supply services.
