Code Fest 2020’s Big Data Challenge: Has Covid-19 Switched Our Green Lights Off?

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread throughout the world, many governments had to make the difficult decision of shutting down schools, shops and many other public spaces. From then, the evolution of the pandemic determined the pace at which countries adapted their response, either by enforcing tighter restrictions or by relaxing them. A by-product of economic and mobility restrictions, Covid-19 has been having effects on pollution levels, energy consumption and, ultimately people’s behaviours. One such example is the decrease of pollution levels in major cities during lockdown.

Now, governments and institutions are starting to wonder how to measure this impact. At  Emergent Alliance we partnered with Code First Girls to translate these questions to those who participated in their Code Fest 2020 event.  During the Big Data Challenge, running from the 4^th to the 18^th of September, María Ivanciu, Elaine Begley and Álvaro Corrales from the R² Data Labs and IBM teams at Emergent Alliance asked the participants questions such as:

• What has the impact of Covid-19 been on the supply & demand of energy in the UK? What would have happened if the Covid-19 crisis did not happen?
• How have people’s habits changed during the pandemic and what is the impact on UK Sustainability targets as a result of these changes?
• How did the economy react when businesses had to close? Were some sectors (for instance energy production) more affected than others? Is there a particular impact onto the economy and energy usage levels?
• What information can we put in the hands of authorities, suppliers and consumers to increase awareness and decision making to further enhance UK focus in moving onto relying onto sustainable energy sources?

To learn more about the Emergent Alliance’s participation in the Big Data Challenge, have a look at Maria and Álvaro’s Tech Talk:

So far we’ve gathered really good feedback! This is a quote from one of the participants. We can’t wait to see the results!

We are a team of data scientists from IBM’s Data Science & AI Elite Team, IBM’s Cloud Pak Acceleration Team, and Rolls-Royce’s R2 Data Labs working on Regional Risk-Pulse Index: forecasting and simulation within Emergent Alliance. Have a look at our challenge statement!