Smart Chicago + Local Developers + Tweets = Better Public Health

The Smart Chicago Collaborative provided server space on our Amazon Web Service account so that a local developer to develop an algorithm to classify tweets in the service of public health. Here’s how Joe Olson of Tracklytics describes the work:

Tracklytics partnered with Smart Chicago and DePaul University to enter a the Now Trending: #Health in My Community contest sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services. The purpose of the contest was to spur innovation in analyzing social media outlets to detect global health trends. Specifically, the contest requirements were to use Twitter to identify trending topics relating to disease, such as West Nile virus and Legionnaire’s disease.

Tracklytics designed and implemented the solution, DePaul helped with testing and algorithm validation, Smart Chicago funded the computer time.

We did not win the contest, but several innovations were developed. We now have the ability to collect over 1,000,000 disease-related tweets per day. A subset of these tweets are run through a machine learning algorithm, and can be filtered down to a much smaller set of tweets where someone is reporting having an instance of a disease, as well as their location. Current accuracy of this is near 85%. We’ve reduced the cost of classifying tweets down to .0000057 cents/tweet, storing them for analysis down to 0.000000235 cents/tweet/month, and archiving them down to 0.000000004 cents/tweet/month.

You can view the site at http://hhs.tracklytics.com

We are currently working on modifying this technology to track food poisoning cases in Chicago. Once legitimate food poisoning cases reported by individuals are identified by Twitter using the machine learning algorithm, we can send to the person reporting the case a tweet containing a URL directing them to a form to collect more specific information (do you suspect the incident occurred at a restaurant, was from tainted food, etc). This information can them be entered into the City’s 311 system via the Open311 interface, and directed to the City’s Health Department for further analysis.

Lots more to come from this work— stay tuned!

Join the Smart Chicago Collaborative at 1871

The Smart Chicago Collaborative has partnered with 1871, the digital startup center located at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, to accelerate civic innovation. We have two reserved seats at 1871 and we seek to fill them with small companies, civic leaders, and community members who are interested in building software using city, county, and state data to improve lives and build businesses.

I will be working there at 1871 a few days a month. Smart Chicago Advisory Board member and City of Chicago Chief Technology Officer John Tolva will also spend some time at the center under the Smart Chicago banner, along with City of Chicago Chief Data Officer Brett Goldstein. We will also bring in staff and leadership from the City and our two other founding organizations, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust. Another important component of our work at 1871 will be bringing in community members from all over Chicago to hear directly from them. Our goal is to stimulate the creation of technology that serves the needs of communities while building new businesses on civic data.

We are seeking a limited number of developers, designers, and other makers who would benefit from a few days a month in this unique environment. If you’re interested, complete the form below to initiate the process. We’ve been founding tenants at 1871 and we are happy to offer it as a resource.

Fill out my online form.