City NGO only Asian entry for $5-m IBM competition for AI

A city-based non-profit has entered an IBM-promoted competition for creating artificial intelligence applications, making it the only Asian team vying for the USD 5-million prize money. The team from Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence is developing a smartphone-based anthropometry tool that will help health workers screen low birth weight newborns without any specialised equipment or physical tests.

The institute located close to the main campus of the Mumbai University at suburban Kalina focuses on leveraging AI for social good, and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year. It is among 34 teams in the "IBM Watson AI Xprize" competition, an official statement said Friday.

Speaking about its project, the institute's chief innovation officer Rahul Panicker cited the Unicef data which estimate half the world's 20 million low-birth-weight babies are not weighed at all at birth. "In the absence of proper care, we are losing too many of these babies," he said, adding the project involves building an AI-powered virtual weighing machines.

It will estimate a newborn's weight, head circumference, and length using only a short video taken on a generic smartphone, without network connectivity or additional hardware, Panicker explained. It can be noted that despite the many strides on the economic front, many pockets in the country are still suffering from high infant mortality rates due to malnutrition or genetic issues, and some recent reports had also highlighted its prevalence even in some pockets of the financial capital as well..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)