Deciphering Climate Change, Human Mobility, and Violent Conflict
Creativity and Commitment
We come from five different countries with diverse background and skill sets. The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University linked our lives together. Our common passion towards sustainable development gave birth to DASH.
Founder
Jessica is currently pursuing her Master of International Affairs degree at Columbia University, with a concentration in International Security Policy and specialization in United Nations Studies. Prior to graduate school, Jessica served in the African Affairs Directorate at the National Security Council at the White House, and helped coordinate U.S. Foreign Policy decisions with respect so sub-Saharan Africa. She has significant regional expertise in sub-Saharan Africa in regions including West, East, and the Horn, particularly related to national and international security dilemmas.
Not Just A Tool
DASH is a methodology to decipher the interactions between climate change, human mobility, and violent conflict, using data analytics and artificial intelligence.
DASH maps and analyzes the spatial and temporal changes in migration patterns, seasonal variability, and urban and agricultural development using data from government statistics, Earth Observation satellites , and mobile and GPS- enabled systems. DASH seeks to map the current zones of conflicts and develop a near real-time forecasting model to identify potential areas of violent conflict through the application of big data analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
Intuitive UI
DASH will visualize historical climate data such as rainfall patterns, seasonal temperatures, and land use. By overlaying these various parameters it will be possible to construct a story of how climate and natural resources have changed over time and space and how various factors have influenced these changes.
DASH will track and map the current pastoralist migration routes using anonymized mobile data, and map-out conflicts over time and space. The mapping will help understand the nature and frequency of conflicts, and draw patterns and insights from them.
The unification of multiple datasets from disparate sources in combination with advanced analytics techniques such as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence will enable the development of a predictive model to anticipate patterns of movement and identify potential zones of resource or service constraints.