On Wednesday, November 25th, the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research (DIGHR) hosted a Virtual Launch Event for the Safe Water Optimization Tool.  

The event was kicked off with opening remarks by York University President, Dr. Rhonda Lenton, and DIGHR Director, Dr. James Orbinski. The event featured a presentation from Dr. Syed Imran Ali, SWOT Lead, on the story of the SWOT—from its origins during a major waterborne disease outbreak in refugee camps in South Sudan, to the latest SWOT machine learning and numerical modelling research, to field implementations of the new technology in Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A session moderated by Dr. Orbinski with members of the SWOT Dev Team including Jean-Francois Fesselet (MSF Coordinator), Prof. Usman Khan (Machine Learning Lead), Mike Spendlove (Technology Advisor), and Matt Arnold (Field Technical Advisor). You can find a recording of the full event here: https://youtu.be/CNiAdNVGO80

There were a great number of insightful questions from the audience during the Q&A session on a range of topics including chlorine taste/odour acceptability, data collection, chlorine resistant pathogens, and others. There was not enough time to get to all of them during the event, so the SWOT Team has prepared full responses for all the questions received and posted them to the FAQ page here.

You may also be interested in...