The Alan Turing Institute teams up with Cervest to help predict climatic events in data scarce regions

• Cutting edge methodology designed to allow communities and organisations around the world to understand and predict what is happening to the planet

• This machine learning framework is the first solution to create high resolution images of areas of land, by integrating information and evidence from multiple resolutions

London, 20 April 2020 The Alan Turing Institute today announces a collaboration with its Turing-Lloyds Register Foundation Data Centric Engineering Programme and UK startup, Cervest, the Earth Science AI company decoding climate uncertainty—as they work together to accelerate research and development to help communities and organisations quickly understand and measure the effects of climatic events.

Today, there are certain regions across the world that are data scarce. This means that organisations and communities rely on fragmented data and high-level predictions on climate and extreme event exposure, which are not useful for everyday decisions such as land management, asset planning, or optimising investments for adaptation.

This collaboration will build on The Alan Turing Institute’s multiresolution machine learning algorithms and Cervest’s data engineering platform and machine learning algorithms—initially applied to crop yield forecasting and remote sensing data. This process—called Multiresolution Multitask Learning Models—is designed to create high resolution images of areas of land, by integrating information and evidence from multiple resolutions across space and through time.

By integrating this fragmented data from sensor networks, organisations and communities globally will be empowered to understand and predict what is happening to the world around them and identify what this means on a unique, personalised level—such as quantifying climate impacts on national infrastructure decisions. Multiresolution Multitask Learning Models can eventually be transferred to other asset categories to help measure the causes and impacts of climatic and extreme events.

As a collaborative hub of leading universities, The Alan Turing Institute is able to deliver benefits that a single institution could not, fast tracking the most innovative research. By working closely with companies such as Cervest, they are bringing together the best talent in the science community to influence and help various industries, policy-makers and the public, to change the world for the better.

Mark Girolami, Director of The Alan Turing Institute-Lloyd’s Register Foundation Data-Centric Engineering programme, said: “By building much needed capability in Data-Centric Engineering, we at the Turing are able to work alongside partners such as Cervest in helping to address some of the pressing global environmental challenges of our time. Together, Turing and Cervest can apply this state-of-the-art data-centric technology to aid understanding of climate change models, for instance, by combining different sources of information from multiple sensor networks. We can also use it to assist in drawing evidence-based conclusions where we have previously lacked data, for example with air pollution maps. Methodologies we are developing together will be able to be deployed on many other challenges as well, catalysing the engineering sciences with new methods and approaches.

“The Turing and Cervest share a commitment to generating global impact, as well as to training the next generation; this collaboration will better equip these future leaders with the tools and knowledge needed to understand our changing climate and world, and more effectively identify and address the challenges of tomorrow.”

Iggy Bassi, Founder and CEO, Cervest, said: “Our goal is to empower everyone to make informed decisions that improve the long-term resilience of our planet, and this collaboration brings that mission another step closer. With The Alan Turing Institute, we want to use this new, cost effective methodology and technology to help communities and organisations quickly understand more about their land-based assets and how it will change in the future to ensure informed and timely decisions.

“The Alan Turing Institute is known worldwide for pushing the boundaries of science and a number of the Cervest team have worked on their own research there, so it was a natural fit to collaborate. It’s exciting to be pioneers of Multiresolution Multitask Learning Modeling and we look forward to seeing the valuable impact this will have on communities all over the world.”

This is the first of many projects that Cervest and The Alan Turing Institute plan to work on together, with their shared values to use innovative technology for good – helping to protect the future and save our planet.

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The Alan Turing Institute press contact:

Beth Wood
Press and Communications Manager

T +44 (0)20 3862 3390

M +44 (0)75 3803 8168

bwood@turing.ac.uk

Cervest press contact:

cervest@marlinpr.com

Sophie Adamson | sophie.adamson@marlinpr.com | +44 7769 293892

Tara Geoghegan | tara.geoghegan@marlinpr.com | +44 7741 647036

About The Alan Turing Institute

The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.The Institute is named in honour of Alan Turing, whose pioneering work in theoretical and applied mathematics, engineering and computing is considered to have laid the foundations for modern-day data science and artificial intelligence. The Institute’s goals are to undertake world-class research in data science and artificial intelligence, apply its research to real-world problems, drive economic impact and societal good, lead the training of a new generation of scientists, and shape the public conversation around data.

turing.ac.uk

About Cervest

Cervest is a powerful Earth Science AI platform bringing climate security to everyone. Making better decisions, minimising risk and identifying opportunities is critical – and our independent, open-access platform provides both the tailored insight and global perspective required to do just that.

We are creating powerful climate security tools, and personalised, science-backed risk analysis for every asset that matters to businesses, governments and people – and to our planet. From extreme weather events to broader climate shifts, we provide real-time insight on how your assets will be impacted.

Cervest has raised more than £4.5 million in pre-Series A funding led by Future Positive Capital and Astanor Ventures, and joined by U.S. climate investors Lowercarbon Capital and Lionheart Ventures. Built on over three years of R&D, Cervest is developed by a world-class team of experts from leading research universities.

For more information visit: cervest.earth