tech for good but you have to dream big . Otherwise , you ’ ll never get there ,” Zurutuza says . “ We ’ re finishing the first phase of Giga , where we proved that we can [ use these technologies and that ] they can work . Now the next one is to address scale ,” she says .
To deliver connectivity to schools , the team first needs to map them and know where they are . Giga retrieves this information from existing school location data provided by local governments and stakeholders , and then checks it for accuracy . When data on school locations is unavailable or inaccurate , Giga offers support by using artificial intelligence ( AI ) and machine learning ( ML ) algorithms specifically developed to identify accurate school locations in satellite imagery tiles .
“ There are a set of characteristics that are unique to schools — from the shape of the roof to the material of the roof to playgrounds — that can be used to distinguish them from other types of buildings ,” Zurutuza says . Data scientists train ML models to learn these patterns so they can detect matches when they see them in satellite images .
While the premise sounds disarmingly simple , its execution is anything but . Finding a grain-like pixel that might be a tiny fraction of a school roof or playground in millions upon millions of images is like looking for a needle in a haystack . It ’ s a daunting task . “ If you have 1.2 million pictures [ from a country ], and if we assume each has 10 million pixels , that ’ s a lot of individual pixels you can have to scan ,” points out Kanon Hile , social innovation portfolio director at Dell Technologies .
Fortunately , it ’ s just the kind of brute-force computing that ML models are adept at executing . As part of a partnership with UNICEF USA , Dell has donated its High Performance Computing ( HPC ) services . The HPC environment is especially useful when you “ need a lot of horsepower to answer a problem quickly ,” Hile says .
The on-demand model for HPC services that Dell has donated helps Giga process millions upon millions of satellite images quickly and efficiently . With HPC , in 2022 , Giga was able to accelerate work that would previously have taken months to
PHOTO © UNICEF / UN0744098 / DEJONGH
Children learn with tablets in the GBPS School of Bertoua in Cameroon .
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