WATERLOO, ON., August 3, 2021 – BlackBerry Limited today announced a first-of-its-kind flood risk and clean water monitoring solution. Based on BlackBerry® AtHoc®, a critical event management platform, the innovative technology provides autonomous year-round monitoring and an intelligent early warning system, collecting and processing large amounts of sensor data, and generating alerts based on the data insights.
BlackBerry has partnered with the University of Windsor to deploy the solution in Canada, where Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted by these issues. Its proven benefits include its ability to identify seasonal and unseasonal water related risks, and generate significant cost savings for governments, utility companies and local communities. Using the solution, local municipalities could each save up to $1,000,000 or more annually in operating expenses, in addition to the environmental, safety, health, and other benefits of early warning flood mitigation and clean water.
“BlackBerry is pleased to deliver this critical innovation, based on BlackBerry AtHoc, as the climate change crisis escalates. Climate change is one of the most pressing threats to our everyday lives, and tackling it requires the urgent and combined effort of governments, organizations, and individuals,” said Neelam Sandhu, Senior Vice President & Chief Elite Customer Success Officer. “BlackBerry is committed to delivering advanced technologies, that turn real-time data into intelligence and leverage our leadership in communications, to enable the safety and security of people around the world. Furthermore, we are on-track to be carbon neutral this year.”
Headed by Trevor Pitcher, director of the of the Freshwater Restoration Ecology Centre and a professor at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and in the Department of Integrative Biology, the project provides of a first-of-its-kind flood risk and clean water monitoring solution.
“You can go in to your smartphone and get a live reading to find out how deep the water is at 10 or 20 different places,” says Dr. Pitcher. “It gives us the ability to be pro-active rather than reactive in the event of an emergency.”
Professor Trevor Pitcher readies a water-monitoring buoy for deployment in July 2019. | Image via Uwindsor.ca
A team from GLIER installed solar-powered sensors along the Detroit River shore in 2019-20. The equipment is capable of providing data in real time to researchers, conservation authorities, marinas, and municipal employees.
“Globally, societies must increasingly rely on the autonomous monitoring of air and water to inform our understanding of the environment and to alert us to impending danger. The BlackBerry solution announced today delivers on this need,” said Mike McKay, Executive Director, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor. “Autonomous early-warnings and real-time monitoring are critical to provide enough time to address the risks communities around the world are currently facing. We are proud to have partnered with BlackBerry on this important and unique technology.”
Over two billion people globally lack access to clean water, with the lives of children under the age of five most threatened. Almost one and a half billion of the world’s population faces a flood risk. Both issues are exacerbated by climate change. To learn about BlackBerry’s commitment to be carbon neutral in 2021 click here.
For more information on BlackBerry AtHoc click here.