You dont have to be an expert to solve big problems Tapiwa Chiwewe
One winter morning, a couple of years ago,
I was driving to work
in Johannesburg, South Africa,
and noticed a haze hanging over the city.
I make that drive on most days,
so it was unusual
that I hadn’t noticed this before.
Johannesburg is known
for its distinctive skyline,
which I could barely see that morning.
It didn’t take long for me to realize
that I was looking at an enormous cloud
of air pollution.
The contrast between
the scenic environment I knew
and this smog-covered skyline
stirred up something within me.
I was appalled by the possibility
of this city of bright and vivid sunsets
being overrun by a dull haze.
At that moment, I felt an urge
to do something about it,
but I didn’t know what.
All I knew was
I couldn’t just stand idly by.
The main challenge was,
I didn’t know much
about environmental science
air-quality management
or atmospheric chemistry.
I am a computer engineer,
and I was pretty sure I couldn’t code
my way out of this air pollution problem.
(Laughter)
Who was I to do anything about this issue?
I was but a citizen.
In the following years,
I learned a very important lesson,
a lesson we all need to take to heart
if we are to work towards a better future.
Even if you’re not an expert
in a particular domain,
your outside expertise may hold the key
to solving big problems
within that domain.
Sometimes the unique perspective you have
can result in unconventional thinking
that can move the needle,
but you need to be bold enough to try.
That’s the only way you’ll ever know.
What I knew back then
was that if I was even going
to try to make a difference,
I had to get smart
about air pollution first,
and so I became a student again.
I did a bit of basic research
and soon learned that air pollution
is the world’s biggest
environmental health risk.
Data from the World Health Organization
shows that almost 14 percent
of all deaths worldwide in 2012
were attributable to household
and ambient air pollution,
with most occurring
in low- and middle-income countries.
Ambient air pollution alone
causes more deaths each year
than malaria and HIV/AIDS.
In Africa, premature deaths
from unsafe sanitation
or childhood malnutrition
pale in comparison
to deaths due to air pollution,
and it comes at a huge economic cost:
over 400 billion US dollars as of 2013,
according to a study by the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Now, in my work,
I explore new frontiers
for artificial intelligence,
where the symbiotic relationship
between man and machine
can find a beneficial footing
and help us to make better decisions.
As I thought about
the air pollution problem,
it became clear that we needed
to find a way to make better decisions
about how we manage air pollution,
and given the scale of the problem,
it was necessary to do it
in a collaborative way.
So I decided I’d better get to know
some people working within the field.
I started to speak to officials
from the City of Johannesburg
and other surrounding cities,
and I engaged the local
scientific community,
and I also made a few cold calls.
The process of engagement I embarked upon
helped me to develop
a deeper understanding of the problem.
It also helped me to avoid the trap
people in my profession sometimes
fall into when trying to innovate,
where we are quick to apply a technology
before we’ve firmly grasped
the problem at hand.
I began to develop an idea
about what I could do
to improve the situation.
I started by simply asking myself
how I could bring together
in some meaningful way
my skills in software engineering
and artificial intelligence
and the expertise of the people
I’d reached out to.
I wanted to create an online
air-quality management platform
that would uncover trends in pollution
and project into the future
to determine what outcomes
can be expected.
I was determined to see my idea
translate into a practical solution,
but I faced uncertainty
and had no guarantee of success.
What I had was a very particular set
of engineering skills,
skills I’d acquired over my career
(Laughter)
that were new to people who had
been working on the air pollution problem
for so many years.
What I have come to realize is that
sometimes just one fresh perspective,
one new skill set,
can make the conditions right
for something remarkable to happen.
Our willpower and imagination
are a guiding light,
enabling us to chart new paths
and navigate through obstacles.
Armed with a firmer understanding
of the air pollution problem,
and having managed to source
over a decade’s worth of data
on air pollutant levels
and the meteorological conditions
for in and around Johannesburg,
my colleagues from South Africa
and China and myself
created an air-quality
decision support system
that lives in the cloud.
This software system
analyzes historical and real-time data
to uncover the spatial-temporal
trends in pollution.
We then used new
machine learning technology
to predict future levels of pollution
for several different pollutants
days in advance.
This means that citizens
can make better decisions
about their daily movements
and about where to settle their families.
We can predict adverse
pollution events ahead of time,
identify heavy polluters,
and they can be ordered
by the relevant authorities
to scale back their operations.
Through assisted scenario planning,
city planners can also make
better decisions
about how to extend infrastructure,
such as human settlements
or industrial zones.
We completed a pilot of our technology
that was run over a period of 120 days,
covering all of South Africa.
Our results were confirmed
when we demonstrated a tight correlation
between the forecasting data
and the data we were getting
on the ground.
Through our leadership,
we have brought cutting-edge,
world-leading assets
that can perform air-quality forecasting
at an unprecedented
resolution and accuracy,
benefiting the city that I drove into
one winter morning not very long ago,
and thought to myself,
“Something is wrong here.
I wonder what can be done?”
So here is the point:
What if I’d not investigated
the problem of air pollution further?
What if I’d not shown some concern
for the state of the environment
and just hoped that someone,
somewhere, was taking care of the matter?
What I have learned is that,
when embarking on a challenging endeavor
that advances a cause
that we firmly believe in,
it is important to focus
on the possibility of success
and consider the consequence
of not acting.
We should not get distracted
by resistance and opposition,
but this should motivate us further.
So wherever you are in the world,
the next time you find
that there’s some
natural curiosity you have
that is being piqued,
and it’s about something you care about,
and you have some crazy or bold ideas,
and perhaps it’s outside
the realm of your expertise,
ask yourself this:
Why not?
Why not just go ahead
and tackle the problem
as best as you can, in your own way?
You may be pleasantly surprised.
Thank you.
(Applause)