DHS Awards Contract for Biological Threat Data
To develop capabilities to monitor the current COVID-19 pandemic and other future biological events, the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate has awarded $199,648 to Mesur.io Inc., for analysis and reporting of outbreak-related data.
The Mesur.io project proposes to adapt its Earthstream Platform to provide data that tracks metrics related to an outbreak or emergence to predict various risks of a biological threat. It automatically identifies, extracts and links geospatial data with relevant data, such as demographics and travel, for easy analysis and improved reporting. The Earthstream Platform is currently used to identify and predict emerging agricultural pathogens and invasive species. Alongside prior work related to Zika and Ebola, Mesur.io has applied the Earthstream platform to COVID-19 analytics involving forecasting and analysis of agricultural, economic and health impacts.
This Phase 1 project proposes to broaden the data source discovery engine and develop capabilities to discover quantitative data from authoritative sources to meet the Homeland Security Department’s data needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other possible future biological events.
This award is made under the Silicon Valley Innovation Program’s Emerging Needs: COVID-19 Response & Future Mitigation solicitation and supports the National Biosurveillance Integration Center, located within the department’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. The center uses cases from the solicitation, which seek data analysis tools to monitor trends and validate open-source data from authoritative sources.
