Guest lecturer Professor Tarun Katapally from Western University, Canada is giving a speech about “Inverting innovation: jurisdiction-specific digital dashboards for decision-making among remote communities” in Thule meeting room, Arktikum on 5th of December at 15:30-17:30.
Summary of the talk: The timely accessibility of big data that are readily usable by decision-makers can transform decision-making processes across multiple systems (i.e., health, social services, food). This talk provides an innovative case study of a digital dashboard that was developed for a remote Indigenous community in the sub-Arctic region of Canada. The development of this digital dashboard was in response to mitigate Corona virus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks. Based on community needs, a community-based population health monitoring application (app) was developed to enable three critical services: 1) Management of household risk of COVID-19, 2) Enable food security, 3) Enable citizens to report inaccessibility of public services. Big data from these services is relayed in real-time to a digital health decision-making dashboard accessed by the jurisdiction’s primary decision-maker’s office. Digital dashboards for decision-making can transform public policy by prioritizing the needs of citizens as well as decision-makers to enable rapid-decision-making. While doing so, these digital dashboards can invert innovation by democratizing technology, and by prioritizing data sovereignty and self-determination of often neglected and isolated communities.
Speaker’s bio: Professor Katapally is a physician and citizen-oriented research leader who established the Digital Epidemiology and Population Health Laboratory (DEPtH Lab) in 2017 to develop a sustainable program of research by scaling up the Smart Platform. Smart is a citizen science platform, which uses big data for one integrated outcome: equity by addressing existing and emerging societal crises. In essence, Smart Platform enables the engineering of digital solutions by harnessing the power of big data, with an emphasis on ethical citizen engagement, data sovereignty, and Internet equity. Dr. Katapally’s team conceptualizes, develops, and implements digital platforms by intersecting citizen science and social innovation. One of the key objectives of the DEPtH Lab is to build international networks to develop societal solutions in these areas: climate change, food security and sovereignty, infectious diseases, mental wellbeing, and substance misuse.
Further information
Research Professor Kamrul Hossain
Arctic Centre, University of Lapland
kamrul.hossain@ulapland.fi