2.A) Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries
Protecting the global food supply is a monumental public health and sustainability challenge. In January 2015, scientists from IBM Research and Mars established the Consortium for Sequencing the Food Supply Chain, a collaborative food safety platform that will leverage advances in genomics to further our understanding of what makes food safe. As a first step, the consortium’s scientists will investigate the genetic fingerprints of living organisms such as bacteria, fungi or viruses and how they grow in different environments, including countertops, factories and raw materials. This data will be used to further investigate how bacteria interact, which could result in completely new ways to view supply chain food safety management. This pioneering application of genomics will enable an in-depth understanding and categorization of microorganisms on a much bigger scale than has previously been possible. The first data samples will be gathered at Mars-owned production facilities, while IBM’s genomics, healthcare and analytics experts will utilize IBM’s Accelerated Discovery THINKLab, a unique collaborative research environment, for the large-scale computational and data requirements of this initiative. Beyond the research, data and findings will be presented in a systematic way to enable affordable and widespread use of these testing techniques.
4.A) Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
IBM has partnered with RTI International, a leading non-profit research institute, to improve development approaches in Africa through data analytics. By employing advanced technologies, researchers hope to capture data that would provide insight to policy leaders for more sustainable programs and sounder investments. IBM and RTI are launching an initiative in Mombasa County, Kenya to help transform the education system. Working with the Kenyan Ministry of Education and USAID, teachers, principals and administrators in more than 100 schools will be provided with tablet devices that will capture data about students and the facilities. From the information acquired, leaders will have a better understanding of current progress and challenges as well as be able to offer recommendations for improvement.
6.A) By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programmes, including water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies
IBM is providing Bangalore, India with Big Data and predictive analytics technology to create systems for monitoring and managing their water distribution systems. IBM worked closely with Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board (BWSSB) to create an operational dashboard, based on the IBM Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) which will serve as a “command center.” Using a Geo Information System (GIS), the IOC will enable monitoring of water flow, with a real-time view of the flow meters. The BWSSB will receive information on the amount of water transmitted by each flow meter, the amount of water supplied to individual parts of the distribution system, the level of water in each reservoir or tank, etc. All data from each meter will report to a single dashboard.
7.A) By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil fuel technologies, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technologies
IBM announced a 10-year initiative to support China in transforming its national energy systems and protecting the health of citizens. Dubbed “Green Horizon,” the project sets out to leap beyond current global practices in three areas critical to China’s sustainable growth: air quality management, renewable energy forecasting and energy optimization for industry. To improve air quality management, scientists from IBM and the Beijing government will apply supercomputing processing power to create visual maps showing the source and dispersion of pollutants across Beijing 72 hours in advance, with street-scale resolution. Additionally, IBM will complement the government’s increased investment in renewable energy with a forecasting system solution which, by combining weather prediction and big-data analytics, will allow utility companies to forecast the amount of energy that will be available to be directed into the grid or stored, ensuring waste reduction. IBM is also supporting China’s national goal to reduce energy consumption by developing a new system that helps monitor, manage and optimize the energy consumed by industrial enterprises – representing over 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption.
13.1) Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
IBM and AECOM worked together with the United Nations’ Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) to develop a scorecard to measure cities’ resilience to natural disasters. The scorecard will help cities improve preparedness to disasters by reviewing policy and planning, engineering, informational, organizational, financial, social and environmental aspects of disaster resilience in 80 assessment categories. Inspired by UN’s Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient, this tool enables cities to prioritize needs, track and measure the progress cities make, and identify major areas of weakness – before a natural disaster identifies these for them. Additionally, in the public domain, it will strengthen the understanding of what it takes to protect lives and will help facilitate a more rapid economic recovery. The resiliency scorecard can be downloaded at UNISDR site.