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Cognizant and XPRIZE Announce Finalists For $500k COVID-19 Pandemic Response Competition

by Jasmine Pennic 01/25/2021 Leave a Comment

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Cognizant and XPRIZE Announce Finalists For $500k COVID-19 Pandemic Response Competition

What You Should Know:

– Cognizant, a Fortune 200 leader in technology and professional services, recently partnered with XPRIZE on the Pandemic Response Challenge, a global competition aimed at fighting the pandemic and mapping a course for safely reopening societies using artificial intelligence. The challenge began in November 2020 and recently entered its final phase.

– The 48 finalist teams from 17 countries were selected from 104 semifinalist teams from 28 countries following an independent judging panel’s assessment of teams’ predictions of COVID-19 transmission rates and patterns.


XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, in partnership with Cognizant, one of the world’s leading technology and professional services companies, today announced that 48 teams from 17 countries are advancing to the final round of the $500K Pandemic Response Challenge.

Pandemic Response Challenge Background

Since the initial approval of COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020, the global pandemic has raged on – more than 25 million additional people have been diagnosed with the disease. The competition aims to harness the power of data and artificial intelligence in equipping policymakers, health officials, and business leaders with insights and guidance necessary to implement public safety measures and safely deliver the vaccine, maximizing their ability to keep local economies open while minimizing potential virus breakouts. Additionally, organizers hope the Challenge will advance the use of AI and data in addressing other humanitarian challenges.

Launched in November 2020, the Pandemic Response Challenge is comprised of two phases. In Phase 1, concluded earlier this month, contestants were tasked with analyzing local COVID-19 data, intervention strategies, and mitigation policies to develop and test a prediction model that could anticipate global infection spikes. The teams had access to foundational models from Cognizant’s Evolutionary AI™ team, which applied artificial intelligence to COVID-19 data sourced from Oxford University and John Hopkins in Spring 2020. 

Finalist teams were selected from 104 semifinalists from 28 countries following an independent judging panel’s assessment of teams’ predictions of COVID-19 transmission rates and patterns.

The 48 finalist teams are:

ADVANCE4COVID, United States

Alphanumerics, United States

BeatCovid, Canada

Big Green, United States

Bioinfo, Sweden

Blitzkrieg Bop, China

Blue Insight, Romania

Bologna Against COVID, Italy

BOSS, United States

CCR, Canada

CGlorioso (X-Glo), United States

CoronaSurveys, Spain

DropTableUsers, China

DSN, Nigeria

DuAI, China

EazyML Team – Innovators of Transparent ML Platform, United States

H-A-L-O AI – Digital Vaccine, United States

IISc-GCDSL, India

JSI vs COVID, Slovenia

Kangaroos, Australia

KASSANDRA, Greece

Klakinn, Iceland

KorkinLabWPI, United States

lnb51451, United States

M-montreal-quebec, Canada

metis2020, United States

Monster Response, Canada

mvsm, Germany

Nebraska team, United States

Nixtamal AI, Mexico

Nnet-Elsinore, Denmark

PAndemic Wave Predictor (PaWP), United States

Pathcheck, United States

Predii, United States

Salus, United States

Shanvi, United States

SZU, China

Tanjo, United States

TBSI, China

Team IMPACT, United States

Team-Prawn, China

The COVariates, Canada

transatlantic, France

University of Central Florida, United States

USC COVID-19 Team, United States

VA-uOttawa, Canada

VALENCIA, Spain

VinTeam, United States

The top 3 finalist countries are: U.S. (20), Canada (6), and China (6). The Challenge received the most team pre-registrations overall from the U.S. (42).

“The finalists in the Pandemic Response Challenge have demonstrated incredible innovation in their efforts to help the world emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Brian Humphries, Chief Executive Officer of Cognizant. “Advancements these teams are making can have far-reaching implications – empowering policy-makers and business leaders globally with data-driven tools, informing countries’ decisions about their re-opening strategies, and proving the value of AI and collaboration in addressing future humanitarian crises.”

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Tagged With: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

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