Manila, Philippines – Through Project MINERVA – Monitoring INdicators for Efficient Redevelopment and Value Assessment – researchers from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) through the Analytics, Computing, and Complex Systems Laboratory of the Asian Institute of Management (ACCeSs@AIM) are harnessing the power of data science and artificial intelligence in monitoring and building predictive models for various environmental factors in Baguio City, to help it become a smart city.
Project MINERVAwas launched on 15 February 2022 at a kick-off meeting via Zoom conference organized by ACCeSs@AIM. MINERVA is a partnership between ACCeSs@AIM, the University of the Philippines – Baguio, and the Local Government Unit of the City of Baguio. The project’s ultimate goal is to have a data hub driving prediction and monitoring models for air quality, water supply, urban mobility, and tourism integrated into a Smart City Index and visualization platform.
With MINERVA, ACCeSs@AIM is building upon the foundations set by Project PATURO (Platform for Assessment and Tracking of Urbanization – Related Opportunities), its first smart city project. The project aims to complement the City of Baguio’s urban renewal and smart city initiatives through data science and artificial intelligence, leveraging existing local government datasets and technologies and deploying new sensors and publicly available data. Baguio City is a pioneer in providing digital governance in the Philippines and will be the testbed for the project.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong is excited to transform the City of Baguio through Project MINERVA. “This is a major step in how we will revolutionize how the city manages its critical assets. We will be able to govern efficiently by gathering data to identify, analyze, and solve problems. This is a critical step towards institutionalizing how we define good governance,” he says.
According to Dr. Christopher Monterola, Executive Managing Director of ACCeSs@AIM, “Our goal is to be the global leader in understanding the recipes to efficiently develop a smart city in the context of a developing nation. By developing an intelligent decision-support system driven by an Internet-of-Things (IOT) network of smart sensors, we want to determine how the economic activities and the corresponding movement of people impact the vibrancy and overall liveability of an evolving city.”
ACCeSs@AIM is AIM’s first industry-facing data science and advanced analytics laboratory – the first of its kind in the Philippines. It houses the most powerful supercomputer in the Philippines and one of the most powerful in Southeast Asia (1.2 petaflops, or quadrillion decimal-point operations per second).
Project MINERVA is funded by the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technologies Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) under its 2021 “Smart City Challenge: Sustainability through Innovation in Cities” grant call. PCIEERD Director Paringit is confident that the project will yield impactful results. “As a leader and partner in enabling innovations, we are optimistic that Project MINERVA will lead the way for other local government units in taking the digital leap and transforming into smart cities,“ he said.
The Honorable Benjamin B. Magalong, Baguio City Mayor, Dr. Ian Jasper Agulo from the College of Science of the University of the Philippines Baguio, Dr. Enrico C. Paringit, Executive Director of DOST-PCIEERD, Dr. Nancy A. Bantog, Regional Director of DOST-CAR, and an ACCeSs@AIM team, led by Aboitiz Chairs in data science Drs. Christopher Monterola (Academician and MINERVA Project Leader) and Erika Fille T. Legara (PATURO Project Leader) participated in the kick-off meeting. They were also joined by DOST Balik Scientist Dr. Jesus Felix Valenzuela and ACCeSs@AIM Senior Data Scientist and Chief Science Research Specialist Dr. Louella Alva Presbitero, who will be spearheading research efforts with Dr. Monterola.