The need to accelerate the digitalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is constant in Southeast Asia. This is so that SMEs can remain relevant in the global market and gain a competitive edge.
The governments of many SEA countries are, therefore, ramping up efforts, at a national level, to push SMEs to be digitally-enabled and technologically equipped to meet the demands of an increasingly digital world.
Malaysia is evidently keen on achieving such goals by the year 2022, in line with governmental efforts to empower a digital society.
The country is actively taking on multiple initiatives to get businesses to leverage viable solutions that could help automate operational processes and achieve digital proficiency.
In particular, the government has prioritized digitalization efforts among SMEs to maintain relevance, maximize business efficiency, and increase productivity.
There is also a strong focus on digital payment capabilities as the country believes that enabling the service is a crucial first step to digitalization.
As a result, the government is working closely with banks to offer SMEs a seamless and interoperable integration with banking systems.
For example, one bank has put forward a set of application programming interfaces (API) to assist in automating payments and reconciling accounts for SMEs, further extending the availability of digital support.
The Chief Executive Officer of SME Corp stated that digitalisation is coming, given another two to three years, predicting that almost all SME will go into cashless payment.
Aside from digital payments, the country is also making an effort to fuel digitalization efforts and recognize those that have succeeded with implementing technology through the Enterprise 50 (E50) 2019 Award program.
The program is among the initiatives by the corporation to reward SMEs for various milestones, including digitalization.
SMEs were free to nominate themselves and were evaluated against a number of criteria to identify those that have adopted solutions and utilized technology tools effectively.
According to Said, SMEs that have submitted their application went through a rigorous assessment process based on various benchmarks, including technology adoption, innovative efforts, and management process.
Although only 10 winners were chosen, 78 companies seemed to have fulfilled all the criteria signifying the effectiveness of the country’s transformation strategies.
Understandably, the demands for digital capabilities will turbocharge technology adoption among SMEs, resulting in increased market value — helping drive the economy forward.
OpenGov Asia reported earlier that Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) will be working alongside a logistics start-up from Singapore on a cross-border eCommerce initiative to help drive Malaysia’s National eCommerce Strategic Roadmap (NESR).
The two will work to help Malaysian SMEs grow abroad by providing cross-border logistics solutions that can deliver their products throughout Southeast Asia.
Since its establishment in 1996, MDEC has been working to drive digital transformation across all sectors in Malaysia, including small-medium enterprises (SMEs). Among their initiatives is onboarding more merchants onto the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ).
The DFTZ is an electronic world trade platform designed to facilitate exports for Malaysian SMEs by providing platforms, e-fulfilment activities and enhanced trade facilitation measures.
To help MDEC drive the NESR further, MDEC and the company will jointly hold events to actively bring more Malaysian businesses onboard eCommerce and the DFTZ.
The firm will also link Malaysian SMEs to various eCommerce partners who will help Malaysian merchants obtain tools and expertise across the entire eCommerce ecosystem including international market entry and online marketplace listings, and more.
The Head of SME Adoption at MDEC stated that the logistics firm has been a big help in executing SME adoption programs to drive the NESR forward, particularly in helping merchants access international markets like Indonesia.
The National Super Computing Mission (NSM) of India is making significant headway in boosting the high power computing capacity in the country. The nation is rapidly expanding its supercomputer facilities and developing the appropriate capacity to manufacture its supercomputers in the country.
The NSM is jointly steered by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
The National Super Computing Mission is deploying a phased strategy through its various arms to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups in areas like oil exploration, flood prediction as also genomics and drug discovery.
With the infrastructure planned in NSM Phase-I already installed and much the infrastructure of Phase-II in place, the network of supercomputers through the country will soon reach to around 16 Petaflops (PF). Phase-III, to be initiated in January 2021, will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops.
Param Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by Param Shakti and Param Brahma at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune, respectively.
Thereafter supercomputing facilities were set up in two more institutions, and one is being set up in Phase-I, ramping up high power computing speed to 6.6 PF under Phase-1. In Phase-II, 8 more institutions will be equipped with supercomputing facilities by April 2021, with a total of 10 PF compute capacity. Work on Phase-III will start in 2021 and will include three systems of 3 PF each and one system of 20PF as a national facility.
MoUs have been signed with 14 premier institutions of India to establish supercomputing infrastructure along with assembly and manufacturing capacity within the country. These include IITs, NITs, National Labs, and IISERs. While some of these have already been installed, more will be done by December this year. The Phase-II installations will be completed by April 2021.
The three phases will provide access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) Facilities to 75 institutions and thousands of active researchers and academicians working through Nation Knowledge Network (NKN) – the backbone for supercomputing systems.
HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have converged together. A 100 AI PF Artificial Intelligence supercomputing system is being created and installed in C-DAC, which can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times.
The mission has also created the next generation of supercomputer experts by training more than 2400 supercomputing manpower and faculties till date.
Powered by the NSM, India’s network of research institutions, in collaboration with the industry, is scaling up the technology and manufacturing capability to make more and more parts in India. While in Phase-I, 30% value addition is done in India, that has been scaled up to 40% in Phase-II.
Efforts are being made to design and develop parts like server board, interconnect, processor, system software libraries, storage, and HPC-AI converged accelerator domestically. India has developed an Indigenous server (Rudra), which can meet the HPC requirements of all governments and PSUs. This is the first time that a server system was made in India, along with the full software stack developed by C-DAC.
Experts said that the pace at which things are moving forward, we may soon have the motherboards and sub-systems manufactured in India, making the supercomputers indigenously designed and manufactured.
Such indigenously designed systems with most parts designed and manufactured in India will be installed at places like IIT-Mumbai, IIT-Chennai, and Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) at Delhi, C-DAC, Pune, which are covered under Phase-III and help move towards supercomputers developed and manufactured totally in India paving the way for self-reliance in the field.
As the world moves towards the digitisation of the economy, the adverse impact of financial crime in banks and other financial institutions is accelerating rapidly. The shift to a work-from-home system as a result of the pandemic has increased the vulnerability of remote financial sector employees whose devices lack adequate security.
There is so much fraud that goes unidentified and cannot be accounted for. As a result, fraud prevention is one of the top areas of concern for the financial sector industry today.
To understand and alleviate the relevant pain points of digital executives from the financial sector industry in Thailand, OpenGov Asia hosted an OpenGovLive! Virtual Breakfast Insight that explored how Advanced Analytics, AI and Machine Learning can power the next-generation of compliance.
The full house of delegates at this event was a testimony to the relevance and importance of this topic among financial sector executives from Thailand.
Bad actors in the digital space are getting harder to identify as they are using the same technology as us
The event began promptly with Mohit Sagar, Group Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, OpenGov Asia introducing participants and laying the ground for the discussion ahead.
Mohit emphasized the increased risk of fraud and money laundering in the financial sector industry in the current atmosphere. Bad actors in the digital space are leveraging the same advanced technology as legitimate organisations with a destructive mindset – and no restrictions of regulation and compliance.
This makes it imperative for financial sector institutions to augment and bolster their existing fraud protection through Advanced Analytics, AI and Machine Learning.
Mohit shed to light on the importance of sound leadership in these trying times and urged all to think as responsibly as leaders do.
He left the audience with advice to partner with experts who excel at utilising technology to strengthen compliance and fraud protection rather than losing this valuable time in understanding and enabling it themselves.
Innovation, adoption, and maturity: three phases of AI and ML adoption cycle in financial institutions
Ahmed: Other stakeholders in the industry recognizing and supporting the use of AI and ML in anti-money laundering initiatives
After Mohit’s opening, Ahmed Drissi, Anti-Money Laundering Lead, APAC, SAS elaborated on the detailed features of SAS’s money laundering solution. Ahmed spoke about the challenges in using traditional AML solutions and how SAS solutions overcome these shortcomings.
He further shared in detail of other the recognition and support for AI and ML in anti-money laundering initiatives by stakeholders in other industries.
Ahmed expounded on the three phases of AI and ML adoption cycle that include innovation, adoption, and maturity as demonstrated by various global and regional banks.
He shed some more light on the various AI/ML use cases in AML. These include entity resolution, customer segmentation, post alert scoring, model detection, tuning and optimisation. Being an expert in the field, he was able to articulately and authoritatively share details of the above-mentioned use cases with the delegates.
Banks and financial institutions must focus on simplifying and strengthening compliance
After Ahmed’s information-rich presentation, Viswanathan Namasivayam, Advisor for Data Science Enterprise Architecture, Data and AI Group at UnionBank Philippines gave his insights and opinions on the topic.
An advocate of simplification of compliance for banks and financial institutions, Viswanathan bases his conviction on the dramatic rise in fraud and hacking incidents he has observed.
He also believes in the power of advanced technology like AI/ML to mitigate these risks as it offers institutions the ability to go beyond a single representation of an individual or an entity, rendering a better understanding of the fraud risk.
Viswanathan shared a recent case study from Germany with the delegates to bring home the point that using AI in technology and security is inevitable in today’s world of increased cyber risk. The case study is a classic example of the consequences of failing to manage the risk associated with fintech companies. He also cautioned the audience that incidents like these would trigger more stringent and tighter regulations.
He completely agreed with Ahmed’s opinion about regulators and supervisors in the industry who also see a lot of value in using technology in this space.
Viswanathan concluded his presentation by pointing to the fundamental shift in financial institution’s approach in the handling of fraud incidences – moving from being reactive to proactive.
None the less, Vishwanathan ended on an optimistic note – acknowledging that this fundamental shift in institutions of becoming more proactive is a significant step for them in their journey towards a having a robust fraud and risk management system.
After these two insightful presentations, the event moved into the more participatory part of the session: polling and discussions.
On the question about the extent to which your organisation is incorporating AI/ML learning capabilities in your risk and compliance programmes, a majority of the delegates voted that they are using AI/ML across risk and compliance, including financial crime – watchlist filtering, sanction screening, and/or transaction monitoring (63%).
A senior delegate from a major bank shared that they are using AI and ML for other functions like data prediction and collection, sales, and contacting their customers but are still evaluating the advantages of AI to be implemented across all risk and compliance programmes.
On the next question about conducting or the need to conduct proper investigations on suspicious transactions and the availability of a sufficient platform to help with the investigation process, most delegates indicated that they have a platform providing these capabilities (63%).
Ahmed was happy to know about this trend and it was in keeping in with their expectation that most banks in Thailand have the proper platform and investigation tools in place.
On the final question about having a real-time fraud detection, prevention, and monitoring solution that is working together with an AML solution, the delegates overwhelmingly voted that they have a fraud system but it is separate from the AML solution (76%).
Another senior executive from a major bank shared that he voted for the above as they have two different departments taking care of fraud monitoring and anti-money laundering n their organisation. In the same vein, he shared that it would be good to have an integrated system over time.
After the polling session Nutapone Apiluktoyanunt, Managing Director, SAS Thailand came forward to close the session. He thanked all the delegates for taking the time to participate in the session and share their invaluable insights.
He also encouraged the delegates to reach out to team SAS if they have any questions or want to get more clarity on the solutions shared during the presentations.
The Singapore Government has announced that they will combine the power of TraceTogether and SafeEntry, two technologies dveloped by the government to help prevent or slow the transmission of COVID-19 in Singapore
In order to resume larger-scale activities and further reopen the economy in a safer manner, TraceTogether-only SafeEntry, known as TT-only SE, will be progressively expanded to more venues.
The use of TT-only SE will provide added assurance that everyone present at these largerscale activities is better protected by effective contact tracing through participation in the TraceTogether Programme.
“TT-only SE ensures that if a COVID-19 case is identified, we can quickly inform close contacts in those locations through the TT Programme. The close contacts can immediately take the necessary precautions to keep their loved ones safe.”
By end of this year, we plan for all popular venues that currently require SE to transit to TT-only SE. The current scanning on-site QR codes with a phone camera, using SingPass Mobile for SE check-in, and scanning of personal IDs, will be disabled at venues where TT-only SE is implemented.
Instead, SE is allowed only if one uses their TT App to scan the on-site QR code, or if they let the on-site entry staff scan the QR code on their TT Token.
Staged Rollout of TT-only-SE
Since August 2020, TT-only SE has been trialled at selected venues where people are likely to be in close contact for prolonged periods, or where human traffic is high, to ensure that individuals at these venues are covered by the TT Programme.
From now till mid-November, TT-only SE will be implemented in venues with activities that involve larger groups of people. These include live performances, business events, places of worship conducting congregational and other worship services with more than 100 people and cinemas. Members of the public who intend to attend these activities are encouraged to download the TT App or collect their TT Token as soon as possible.
By December, TT Tokens would already have been widely available for a substantial period of time. TT-only SE will be implemented at all popular venues where SE is currently mandatory. This would include workplaces, schools, shopping malls and F&B outlets. The latest list of venues which will transit to TT-only SE will be updated on an ongoing basis at www.safeentry.gov.sg/deployment.
TraceTogether Programme Crucial for Effective Contact Tracing
TT and SE are critical digital tools that allow us to quickly contain the spread of COVID19 the moment it is detected, so that we can safely ease our measures and continue to resume economic and social activities.
These tools help to stem multiple generations of spread and prevent large clusters from forming. We seek everyone’s cooperation in using SE and participating in the TT Programme, to make Singapore safer from COVID-19.
Vietnam’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) under the Authority of Information Security, Ministry of Information and Communications announced the results of the implementation of its campaign on reviewing and removing malware nationwide for this year.
The results were released by Tran Quang Hung, director of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC).
The initiative is a large-scale campaign aiming to ensure the safety and benefits of communities, businesses, individuals and families that use internet-connected devices that are networked in a cyber environment.
The goal of the campaign is to reduce the rate of malware infection by 50% and reduce the number of IP addresses of Vietnamese computer systems in globally popular computer networks infected with viruses by 50%overall.
Researches by a number of reputable security firms that conduct global surveys showed that although malware infection in Vietnam had decreased recently, it was still high compared to other countries in the world.
Statistics showed that Vietnam had about 16 million computer addresses following the 4th generation internet protocol (referred to as IPv4) in the middle of September 2020. Of these, about three million IP addresses were frequently blacklisted by many international organisations.
One of the key outcomes of the campaign implementation is to take Vietnam out of the top list of malware infection rates reported by major security and information technology firms in the world.
The campaign was hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communications and implemented by NCSC in co-ordination with corporations including VNPT, Viettel, BKAV, FPT and CMC.
Many individuals and organisations have joined forces to check and remove malware from thousands of infected computers of individuals and businesses free of charge. The number of individuals and organizations giving feedback to the campaign has reached over 17,000.
Of the 900,000+ computers involved in malware scanning, over 300,000 infected computers were pinpointed and attended to by units participating in the campaign.
Information technology units, participating in the campaign, provide tools to inspect, process, and remove malware to ensure user safety when using computers and internet-connected devices.
Good quality anti-malware software is updated and allowed for free use by the providers themselves on a dedicated website. There have been more than five million approaches to the campaign after three weeks of implementation.
The Vietnam government strongly believes that ensuring safety in cyberspace will accelerate the process of national digital transformation as it is the key to a successful and sustainable digital transformation.
Spam and fake calls are a global problem that has emerged in Vietnam in recent years, a representative of the Telecommunications Department said.
According to the Telecommunications Department under the Ministry of Information and Communications, mobile network operators in Vietnam locked 34,700 subscribers that made spam calls and prevented over 9 million fake calls in the last three months.
Since July this year, network operators have blocked outgoing calls of more than 34,700 subscribers who made spam calls, including 16,288 subscribers in September 2020 alone. Additionally, network operators blocked over 9 million fake calls since July of which and 3.3 million fake calls were in September.
After network operators sent messages warning subscribers about fake calls, the proportion of subscribers answering calls made by strange numbers decreased from about 40% in June and July 2020 to below 10% at present. Reports of fake calls to the police have also dropped by 70%.
To ensure better cooperation of mobile service users, the Telecommunications Department and network operators have appealed to the wider community to work with the government and operators.
The Australian Government has updated the National Security Science and Technology Priorities, to strengthen the country’s national security.
The update identified six priority areas, including cybersecurity, intelligence, border security and identity management, technology foresight, investigative support and forensic science, and preparedness, protection, prevention and incident response.
The update has given greater consideration to recent challenges such as national resilience and biosecurity. These priorities will help to drive strategic advantage by developing, adapting and delivering science and technology solutions to current and future national security challenges.
The National Security and Defence community will work closely to shape and harness the national science and technology enterprise, to achieve a cohesive innovation system as outlined in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update.
Given the commitment and capacity of adversaries to engineer smarter, more agile and increasingly innovative technologies to threaten Australia’s national security, and the growing challenges arising from its natural environment that test the resilience of its society and national systems, the country must remain at the forefront of science and technology to remain agile and anticipative of new and emerging threats.
Currently, Defence, specifically Defence Science and Technology (DST), is responsible for coordinating national security science and technology. DST is recognised as having expertise across key areas of science and technology delivery, experience in establishing and managing diverse research programs, and strong connections with domestic and international science and technology providers.
Priority Areas
The six national security science and technology priority areas are:
- Technology Foresighting
The ability to monitor, analyse and evaluate the implications of scientific and technological developments to prevent strategic and tactical surprise.
- Intelligence
The ability to collect, analyse, integrate, assess and disseminate intelligence with the accuracy, scale and speed required to support timely national security and intelligence decision making.
- Preparedness, Protection, Prevention and Incident
The ability to appropriately equip and prepare Australian agencies to effectively address national security threats and natural or man-made destructive events, including mass-harm and mass-damage incidents, either by preventing their occurrence, or responding and recovering effectively if they have occurred.
- Cyber Security
The ability to strengthen the cybersecurity and resilience of critical infrastructure and systems of national significance through the conduct of research and development, and the delivery of advanced cyber technologies, tools, techniques and education.
- Border Security and Identity Management
National security community’s ability to protect and secure Australia’s borders from disease outbreaks, hazardous material and threats to our community, including maximum disruption effect on illegal activity and migration with projected growth in people and cargo movement across Australian borders.
- Investigative Support and Forensic Science
Law enforcement’s ability to prevent, disrupt and prosecute terrorist and criminal activities in a complex transnational and evolving digital environment.
Fostering academic and industry partnerships
The NSSTC continues to strengthen national science and technology partner capabilities to enhance targeted delivery to the Australian national security agencies. NSSTC participated in the May 2018 Civil Security Congress and Exposition which provided an opportunity to widely engage with Australian industry.
Of particular note, two Australian companies have produced equipment in the areas of explosive trace detection and stand-off detection of improvised explosive devices following receipt of NSSTC development funding.
Some current projects include:
- Novel fingerprint detection techniques
- Developing CBRN risk protocols to ensure first responder safety
Fostering international collaboration
The NSSTC maintains bilateral Memorandums of Understanding with the following international partners:
- US Department of Homeland Security
- US Combatting Terrorism Technical Support Office
- UK Home Office
- Canadian Centre for Security Science
- New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
Building on the successful bilateral engagements between allied nations, a Five Nation Research and Development Initiative (5RD Initiative) has been established which seeks to create new opportunities to deliver more efficient and cost-effective access to results, expand research, development, testing, and evaluation capacity, and offset limitations in a constrained and fluctuating budget environment.
DST’s national security science and technology program
The NSSTC drives dual-use application of sovereign DST technology encouraging applicability in both military and national security environments.
DST has directly contributed to the nation’s security through the delivery of national security science and technology solutions in areas such as facial recognition algorithms, video analytics, vehicle survivability, decision support systems, blast modelling, cyber open-source training, home-made explosive characterisation and threat assessments, toxic chemical detectors and support to numerous operations.
Specific work includes assistance with the characterisation of the threat for the aviation security incident in Sydney July 2017 and recently working with Home Affairs to host a Chemical, Biological and Radiological Capability Exercise (CAPEX) in Queensland, which involved CBR specialists from Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.
In a major initiative, the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in a major initiative onboarded its latest IT tools of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to provide assistance and solutions to micro, small and medium enterprises.
The ministry has implemented AI & ML on its robust Single Window System ‘Champions’ which was launched by the Prime Minister on 1 June 2020. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning analytics can be seen at the “AI Corner” on the portal.
The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) has been done to strengthen the ministry’s Single Window System Portal ‘Champions’ that has been assisting MSMEs across the nation. This multi-modal system has virtual portals and technology-equipped physical control rooms at 69 locations spread across the country. It has emerged as one of the front runner platforms for the MSMEs in a very short span.
The ministry took the COVID-19 as an opportunity to deploy cutting-edge interventions. In this difficult period, the ministry not only whole-heartedly supported MSMEs but used it to break barriers and make a paradigm shift in operations for the sector. The ministry further is working aggressively to take the MSMEs, and the nation, in the direction of Industry 4.0. The ministry is itself, adopting technologies categorised as part of Industry 4.0 and is also encouraging MSMEs to similarly adopt the latest available technology.
Taking self-reliance a further step ahead, the ministry is aiding MSMEs to manufacture essential and enabling products like sensors, motors, computer displays and other animation technologies. In line with this strategy, the ministry has implemented Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on their Champions portal. The entire concept, scope analysis and design were done inhouse by the Ministry with the help of NIC and under the guidance of their tech partner.
The ministry’s technology partner has been guiding the Ministry over the last five months in implementing some of the tools of AI & ML. The ministry confirmed that the technology partner implemented the entire domain of AI & ML on the Champions portal free of cost.
The ministry confirmed they have deployed the tools to enable and optimise the Champions portal with AI & ML Analytics technology to derive a wide range of insights. This is helping them understand the issues in real-time which includes information intelligence and sentiment analysis based on widely available social media and online data.
In this current phase, the AI and ML tools:
- give the MSME Ministry social media insights relating to MSMEs for its policy action through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogs, Forums and online news that were not available to earlier;
- enable the ministry to get the pulse of the entire MSME Sector even without the stakeholders going to our portal; till now, the ministry was dependent on the complaints and data which were seen on our the CHAMPIONS portal (for grievance redressal);
- make it possible to know the context and atmosphere of the people involved with or dependent on the MSME sector in real-time;
- present data-driven insights that are easy to understand. The tools can slice and dice data in many ways that were not available in traditional tools of Management Information Systems;
- empower all levels of staff, not just specialists, to easily discover actionable points;
- take over tedious work of preparing data for analysis, freeing up human resources to engage in more productive work.
- Allow data analytics to be easily shared as real-time live-data links with the teams at Central (Hub level) and spokes of CHAMPIONS Control Rooms spread all over India;
Ministry of MSME also said that now the next phase is relatively easier for which the trial is on. The second phase would be directed towards real-time grievance redressal and management.
This includes increasing the performance of control rooms and officers through AI-enabled ChatBots for faster response to the query of portal users. It will also give real-time, detailed analytics across the entire workflow of its single window system and grievance redressal.
The modular desktop technology can be used to distinguish black carbon particles from two primary sources: diesel vehicles and biomass burning, such as bushfires or crop burning regimes. Thomson Environmental Systems in Caringbah NSW, co-located in the Sutherland Shire with ANSTO, has been licensed to sell MABI.
Distinguished Research Scientist Prof David Cohen, who was instrumental in the development and testing of the device, said it was an important tool which can provide environmental managers and researchers with new information about pollution.
As part of the extensive validation and testing, the device was distributed to 43 countries around the world and performed well. He notes that it started as a research instrument, it is time to push it out there to the commercial world. The technology complements the extensive range of instruments being sold for measuring air pollution in the atmosphere.
The Director of Innovation and Commercialisation at ANSTO stated that the solution is a great example of how decades of experience in monitoring pollution led to the development of the innovative technology with environmental and health benefits, as well as commercial opportunities for a local science-based business.
In July 2019, it was reported that ANSTO scientists, who are experts in the monitoring of fine particle pollution, developed a research instrument to measure the concentration of black carbon in the atmosphere and determine its source.
Black carbon is a key component of fine particle air pollution; its quantification will produce a better understanding of the role it plays in climate change.
Typical aerosol filter samples used for fine particle pollution monitoring can be loaded in the instrument for measurements. Because the instrument can measure light absorption at seven different wavelengths, it can distinguish different black carbon particle sizes and types.
MABI, which is powered from a simple USB cable has inbuilt software to record and export transmission data which can be converted to black carbon concentrations through standard equations. The equations are provided and the users can measure their black carbon mass absorption coefficients for each wavelength and for their particular region and sampling site. This ensures that the calculation is specific to their sampling site and a more accurate estimate of the black carbon content in their air.
The instrument works by inserting a filter paper into a beam of light. This light goes through the filter and into a detector. Measurement is taken for an unexposed filter and then an exposed filter. By taking the log of the unexposed reading subtracted from exposed reading, you can calculate the amount of black carbon on the filter.
The light from seven LEDs in the unit extends to wavelengths from 405 nanometres to 1050 nanometres. And the process is fast, taking less than 35 seconds to complete the seven-wavelength measurement.
The idea for the instrument came from ANSTO’s fine particle pollution sampling program. The team used to measure black carbon at one wavelength and use a single mass absorption co-efficient to cover all particle sizes. This assumed that every particle was the same size and density.
Facilities which purchase the instrument are asked to provide their data back to ANSTO to be added to the global database the researchers maintain on fine particle pollution. Ideally, the instrument could be used by all the environmental protection agencies and environmental monitoring facilities sampling air pollution using filters, Cohen noted.
Critical event management has come to the fore with the pandemic. Forecasting, planning and management of critical events help organisations and authorities prevent disruption of life and damage to property.
Governments rely on several, specific systems for critical event management. Such programmes are essential to national well-being especially with the increase in natural disasters. But, more often than not, they operate in isolation of each other. According to world experts in Critical Event Management – Everbridge, this siloed approach can create duplication in information and processes, data contradictions and, when unchecked, could lead to loss of life and damages.
Everbridge’s Coronavirus Preparedness and solutions can make a significant difference in mitigating harm caused by the pandemic. They provide richer intelligence and correlating threats with locations of assets and people ensuring more rapid and comprehensive incident assessment and remediation.
With the pandemic forecast to be around for some time, planning responses to adverse events must continue alongside COVID-19 management. In light of this, it is expedient for governments to re-look at their systems, tools, processes and platforms they have in place to manage critical events.
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