EYWA our new onboarded pilot wins the 1st EIC Horizon Prize on Early Warning for Epidemics

Congratulations to our new onboarded pilot EYWA for winning the first “EIC Horizon Prize on Early Warning for Epidemics”. This accomplishment is a significant milestone and an exceptional example of the unlimited Earth Observation power and the societal benefits that can derive from harnessing space technology.

In April 2018, the European Commission launched a €5 million prize for an early warning system for epidemics. It was one of six European Innovation Council (EIC) Horizon Prizes, which were part of the EIC pilot run under the Horizon 2020 European Research & Innovation programme.

The prize rewards the development of a scalable, reliable and cost-effective early warning prototype system based on Earth observation data to forecast and monitor outbreaks of vector-borne diseases.

The winning solution provides an early warning capability to help prevent and mitigate the impact of infectious diseases on local, regional and global scales. It uses Earth observation data from Copernicus and the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS), as well as epidemiological and other geo-located data including socioeconomic data. Climate information is also used to monitor and predict distribution and longer-term trends.

Mariya Gabriel

EYWA platform

EarlY WArning System for Mosquito-borne Diseases (EYWA) is a game changer in the domain of epidemics. It transforms scientific knowledge into a decision-making tool, contributing significantly to combatting and controlling the threat of mosquito-borne diseases. The solution enhances mosquito surveillance and control at various spatio-temporal scales and in different climatic zones, and guides day to day prevention and mitigation actions. It significantly reduces the entomological risk and results in the aversion of human cases in thousands of villages where EYWA is employed.

The technological novelty of EYWA lies in the efficient handling of multiple data sources such as entomological, epidemiological, Earth Observation, crowd and ancillary geospatial data, along with dynamic and data driven models to generate knowledge on the mosquitoes’ abundance and pathogens’ transmission. Thanks to data provided by Copernicus satellites and Copernicus Core Services, EYWA reliably depicts the dynamics of mosquito habitats and breeding sites. The system capitalises on European investments in Earth observation and cloud-based data repositories and capacities (i.e. DIAS, GEOSS, NextGEOSS).

Press Release

Read more here and watch the YouTube video

Official Announcement of the EIC

GEO blog article

Horizon magazine article

Special mentions | articles in media (EN):

https://emeastartups.com/eywa-the-epidemiological-risk-system-received-a-distinction-of-5-million-euros/8541

https://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/topics/business-r-d/7612-greece-based-project-wins-european-innovation-council-prize,-helping-theglobal-fight-against-epidemics

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/02/22/observations-from-space-help-scientists-get-one-step-ahead-of-the-tiny-but-deadly-mosquito/

Special mentions | articles & videos in local media (GR):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDYv97cN3WU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbfcTJbE1s0