Australia’s Eastern Health named as Google AI Impact Challenge Grantee
As part of Google’s AI for Social Good program, we launched the Google AI Impact Challenge, based on our strong belief that emerging technologies will help us address big social, humanitarian and environmental problems. We were blown away by the number of proposals we received: 2,602 applications from 119 countries, nearly two thirds of the world’s countries.
Today, 20 organisations were announced that will share $25 million USD in grants from Google.org, credit and consulting from Google Cloud, mentoring from Google AI experts and the opportunity to join a customized accelerator program from Google Developers Launchpad - including Australia’s Eastern Health!
Eastern Health will receive $1.2M AUD to develop a national monitoring system which has the potential to set international standards informing suicide prevention efforts. As ambulances are often the first point of contact with someone who is suicidal, ambulance clinical records are significantly under-utilised to treat and prevent suicide.
By using AI tools to analyse this valuable data, Eastern Health aims to uncover critical suicide trends and potential points of intervention to better inform policy and public health responses.
The other organisations selected as grantees of the Google AI Impact Challenge address issues in the areas of health, economic opportunity and empowerment, environmental protection and conservation, education, misinformation and crisis and emergency response. Find out more about other projects here.
Forty percent of the applications came from organisations with no previous experience with artificial intelligence, which is still a developing concept in the social impact field. Our job, as we thoroughly vetted the applications, was to choose the best projects based on feasibility, potential for impact, scalability and the responsible use of AI.
Next week, the grantees will converge in San Francisco for the kickoff of the Google AI Impact Challenge Accelerator, the six-month program run by Google Developers Launchpad. Eastern Health will join a local network of more than 20 non-profits in Australia supported by Google.org to use technology to help address Australia’s biggest social challenges. Congratulations Eastern Health!
