Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gth­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) is a com­mon con­ver­sa­tion around the world these days - most­ly on how it can help or hurt hu­mans.

How­ev­er, Dr Leti­tia Ad­di­son, who is a project of­fi­cer, lec­tur­er and re­searcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), has been us­ing AI in the fight against cli­mate change with a fo­cus on the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties.

Her work earned her the grand prize at the AI In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge at COP29 in Baku, Azer­bai­jan. The first-place pro­pos­al, AI4SIDS is an AI-dri­ven Cli­mate Re­silience for Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States. Out of 114 en­tries from 62 coun­tries, it was cho­sen as the top so­lu­tion and recog­nised at the Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change Sum­mit.

Ad­di­son and her re­search team sought to cre­ate a pro­pos­al for a web-based plat­form with AI-dri­ven tools that di­rect­ly ad­dress the unique vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties faced by Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS), of­fer­ing in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to en­hance dis­as­ter re­silience and pre­pared­ness, re­duce eco­nom­ic loss, and bring hope to com­mu­ni­ties that are of­ten over­looked.

“This award was more than just an ac­knowl­edge­ment of our ef­forts; it was a step­ping stone to­ward cre­at­ing mean­ing­ful change, em­pow­er­ing vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties in the Caribbean and be­yond, and re­al­iz­ing the full po­ten­tial of AI to ad­dress cli­mate chal­lenges in the re­gions that need it most,” Ad­di­son told WE Mag­a­zine.

It’s a project that is very per­son­al to her. With SIDS be­ing im­pact­ed by hur­ri­canes, floods, and ris­ing sea lev­els, re­sult­ing in dev­as­tat­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial im­pacts, her pro­pos­al fo­cus­es on build­ing an AI-pow­ered plat­form de­signed to en­hance ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems and dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

It’s not her first taste of suc­cess. In 2022, along with her team, she suc­cess­ful­ly built the win­ning AI pro­to­type for flood risk pre­dic­tion in the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States coun­tries, util­is­ing da­ta such as tem­per­a­ture, rain­fall, and hu­mid­i­ty. The com­pe­ti­tion, Growth and Re­silience Cli­mate Da­ta Chal­lenge, was host­ed by the East­ern Caribbean Cen­tral Bank.

While the COP29 award was the pin­na­cle, that first award was piv­otal.

Ad­di­son ex­plained: “That project was a turn­ing point for me. It showed me how my love for sta­tis­tics, da­ta sci­ence and AI could con­verge with my de­sire to pro­tect these vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. I saw the im­mense po­ten­tial to cre­ate tools that not on­ly pre­dict dis­as­ters but al­so em­pow­er peo­ple to pre­pare for and mit­i­gate their im­pacts.”

For this St Joseph’s Con­vent, St Joseph alum­nus, the im­pact of cli­mate change on the re­gion runs deep.

“Grow­ing up in the Caribbean, I wit­nessed first­hand the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of our com­mu­ni­ties to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. That ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ence shaped my re­solve to find in­no­v­a­tive ways to pro­tect these com­mu­ni­ties,” she ex­plained.

That con­cern for the re­gion has on­ly broad­ened in the last few years with dev­as­tat­ing hur­ri­canes pum­mel­ing some is­lands and leav­ing them with­out elec­tric­i­ty and an econ­o­my.

“These mo­ments plant­ed a seed in me to use da­ta to find so­lu­tions,” she said.

Al­though her job is high­ly tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal, Ad­di­son has found mo­ti­va­tion in the every­day peo­ple bat­tling against ex­treme weath­er pat­terns.

She said: “I am in­spired by the re­silience of peo­ple in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties, their abil­i­ty to re­build and move for­ward de­spite over­whelm­ing chal­lenges. They are the rea­son I strive to cre­ate so­lu­tions that give them a fight­ing chance.

“I am al­so mo­ti­vat­ed by the po­ten­tial of AI to rev­o­lu­tion­ize how we tack­le cli­mate is­sues, where it can be used to im­prove tra­di­tion­al ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems with faster re­al-time mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and in­ter­ven­tion, which can save lives, safe­guard liveli­hoods, and re­duce eco­nom­ic costs.”

Ad­di­son is on a mis­sion to see da­ta-dri­ven so­lu­tions such as AI4SIDS im­ple­ment­ed across SIDS world­wide, em­pow­er­ing them to pre­pare for and re­spond to cli­mate risks ef­fec­tive­ly.

She hopes to build part­ner­ships with the uni­ver­si­ty, gov­ern­ments, NGOs, and tech or­gan­i­sa­tions to scale up these types of so­lu­tions to­wards cli­mate re­silience.

“Be­yond that, I dream of in­spir­ing a glob­al move­ment that sees AI and da­ta sci­ence as pow­er­ful tools to en­hance ex­ist­ing sys­tems where ap­plic­a­ble. Most im­por­tant­ly, I want to en­sure that no vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ty is left be­hind and that the next gen­er­a­tion sees them­selves as agents of change in the fight for a sus­tain­able fu­ture,” she added.

This math­e­mat­ics lover, whose pas­sion for the sub­ject stayed with her from pri­ma­ry school to her doc­tor­ate, is now us­ing num­bers to cre­ate sys­tems to help at-risk com­mu­ni­ties across the Caribbean stave off its biggest-ever chal­lenge - cli­mate change.

“If there’s one thing I have learned, it is that this work is big­ger than me or my team. It is about the lives we touch, the com­mu­ni­ties we can up­lift, and the fu­tures we in­spire, no mat­ter how small the con­tri­bu­tion. The fight against cli­mate change is a shared jour­ney, and I in­vite every­one to play a part - whether through in­no­va­tion, ad­vo­ca­cy, or ed­u­ca­tion. To­geth­er, we can cre­ate a world where re­silience and hope tri­umph over ad­ver­si­ty,” she said.

While the pros and cons of AI con­tin­ue to be de­bat­ed around the world, Ad­di­son is in­tent on us­ing its ad­van­tages to help the most vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties in the most vul­ner­a­ble states pre­pare for the ex­treme weath­er that could de­cide their fate.