Digital Discussion Forum: Big data solutions to COVID-19 & Food Security impacts

In times of crisis, big data tools can help us make sense of and respond to crises with agility and accuracy.

From using satellite remote sensing to monitor crop harvests to leveraging social media data to track population dynamics that may influence the spread of disease, big data tools and approaches have been instrumental in sensing and responding to the pandemic’s impacts on global food security and supply chains.

As we begin recovering and (re)building resilient food systems, we must leverage the power of big data to examine concepts of resilience and inform our understanding of how digital dynamism enables adaptive food systems in the face of shocks, and, in the longer term, addresses systemic issues in agriculture that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis.

Towards that aim, the BIG DATA Platform is launching an online discussion series that will bring emergent research and on-the-ground realities together in conversation in order to map out the direct impacts of COVID-19 across food value chains and glean data-driven recommendations and solutions.

Discussions will be held in June 2020.

Each session will be highly participatory; a panel of leaders will present for approximately 10 minutes each before engaging in a cross-panel discourse, followed by a segment of audience engagement and debate.

We will host the series adjacent to the Platform´s Rapid Response Grants and in the lead up to the 2020 Inspire Challenge grant awards, which also have a strong crisis response component. 

We invite experts, leaders, scientists, organizations working on the ground, and researchers from around the world to submit discussion topics now.

When submitting a proposal, please keep in mind that your proposal should be relevant to one of these categories:

• Pre-production: Finance, planning, labor, and inputs
• On-farm: Planting, growing, harvesting
• Post-harvest: Storage, processing, certification
• To-market: Aggregation, packaging, transport, retail, consumption

Secondly, discussions should center around one or more of the following topics:

• Policy, best practices, and lessons learned
• Value chain development
• Machine learning and AI applications
• Applications of geospatial data and tools
• Mediating supply and demand issues
• Measuring and building resilience in food systems
• Sustaining farm income
• Women’s empowerment and gender equality
• Data access, security & ethics
• Other…

After reviewing your submission, we will contact you to finalize the session details and pair you with session co-leaders. All session leaders will receive dedicated training on the broadcast platform to ensure an engaging virtual event.