When an earthquake hits a place, more casualties occur not due to shaking ground, but due to the collapse of poorly constructed buildings. Now, Build Change, a foundation with an aim to prevent housing loss by natural calamities is planning to do something about it.
The foundation has announced the “Intelligence Supervision Assistant for Construction” (ISAC-SIMO) app that is powered by an AI. It is an open-source app aided by an AI-enabled quality assurance tool for construction. The tool uses machine learning to allow people to make sure the materials used for construction are of good quality. Besides, it also ensures the buildings are disaster-ready by examining the construction methods.
Finding experts is a challenge
Whenever earthquake-proofing is discussed, it’s mostly about building skyscrapers and bridges safely with the help of advanced engineering and quality materials. However, the challenge of rebuilding in emergent areas isn’t completely about using advanced engineering techniques.
One of the most common challenges in such scenarios is finding the expertise to make sure laborers are building safely and using the right materials for construction.
“ISAC-SIMO has amazing potential to radically improve construction quality and ensure that homes are built or strengthened to a resilient standard, especially in areas affected by earthquakes, windstorms, and climate change,” said Elizabeth Hausler, Founder & CEO of Build Change.
“We’ve created a foundation from which the open-source community can develop and contribute different models to enable this tool to reach its full potential. The Linux Foundation, building on the support of IBM over these past three years, will help us build this community,” she added.
Critically-acclaimed app
The app was also the runner-up in the Call for Code challenge, an open-source event organized by David Clarke Cause, IBM, The Linux Foundation, and other partners.
Providing an app to people that will help them determine the quality of the brick and mortar used for construction will surely come in handy and save countless lives.
