Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab partners with San Diego public safety scheme ALERTCalifornia

The University of San Diego’s ALERT California program has announced a new partnership with Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab, aiming to strengthen the scheme’s statewide camera network platform resilience. 

ALERTCalifornia Director Neal Driscoll discusses a tripod camera unit with the team from Microsoft AI for Good

Microsoft’s AI for Good will use AI to use ALERTCalifornia’s data archive of environmental monitoring to improve understanding of climate change in the state and how predictive technologies could be better applied to natural disaster response.

Chris Barry, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, commented on LinkedIn: “This collaboration exemplifies resilient public safety infrastructure: empowering communities to anticipate, respond to, and recover from disasters.”

ALERTCalifornia has a network of more than 1,200 natural hazard monitoring cameras that are used by emergency managers when responding to natural disasters in California.

So far, the teams say wildfire detection is occurring ten to 30 minutes earlier than with the existing platform.

“Microsoft is working with ALERTCalifornia and UC San Diego, combining Azure cloud and AI with a powerful camera network to give first responders earlier, clearer situational awareness, often before the first 911 call,” explains Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft. “That early insight can help stop small fires from becoming devastating ones and better support those protecting lives, homes, and communities.” 

The teams are hoping to develop edge computing for AI and imagery that will improve the camera transmission frame rate from 20 seconds per frame to one frame every second.

“Wildfire resilience requires innovation at every level—from sensing and analytics to infrastructure and decision support,” explains Neal Driscoll, Director at ALERTCalifornia and professor of geology and geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. 

“By collaborating with Microsoft, we’re expanding the scientific and technical foundation of ALERTCalifornia to better equip emergency managers and communities across the state.”