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Young Innovators

Gradient Ocean

Terry Cullen

Jan 14, 2022

Peru

Categories:

Technology, Youth, Education, Innovation

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE, is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. The IEEE hosts YESIST 12 (Youth Endeavors for Social Innovation using Sustainable Technology), a platform and an international talent show for students and young professionals to showcase their innovative ideas to address humanitarian and social issues affecting their communities.


YESIST12 is an organization that promotes social innovation using sustainable technology. YESIST12 accomplishes this with an established platform that connects young innovators in 25 countries worldwide to academic institutions, professional groups, corporate executives, non-governmental organizations, governmental groups, and experienced innovators through service learning, networking, and upskilling.


Originally started as a hackathon with Asian students focused on humanitarian issues, YESIST12 has grown to connect over 15,000 innovators in multiple countries over the past five years. Each year a different theme is chosen for innovators and a host university as the hub for the work. (Last year, the entire program was online.) In 2016, the theme was ‘Enhancing the Quality of Life Through Innovation .’ In 2020, it was ‘Preparing for the Future - Sustainable Transformative Technologies.’


A recent national contest was held in Peru to pick a team to represent the country in YESIST12. A two-person team, Gianella Liviapoma (Biomedical Engineering student) and Elias Huaripuma (Mechatronic Engineering graduate) from the Technological University of Peru, with a team name of ‘Diagnosis of Neoplastic Diseases using Artificial Intelligence’ won top honors with their project, ‘Convolutional neural networks for the detection of tumors in mammograms.’


There is a margin of error in diagnosing tumors in mammograms, resulting in false-positive or false-negative results. Using neural networks, part of artificial intelligence, they simulated functioning biological neurons. They then created artificial neurons and trained them to spot tumors based on past mammograms already diagnosed with such. A machine learning process accomplished this. Once the network knows how many different ways a tumor can appear or where it lodges, it can rapidly spot abnormalities in mammograms missed by human assessment alone.


With six hundred mammogram results entered into the database, the network makes correct diagnoses 56% of the time. The next step is to increase the mammography bank to 10,000 images. Liviapoma and Huaripuma expect this will increase the efficiency and accuracy of diagnoses to greater than 80% and possibly as high as 90-95%.


Liviapoma wants to motivate other young people. “[A]rtificial intelligence is a market that is not currently being exploited, in the country, it is just beginning to be promoted. I know that our project has a future and we will be able to achieve the objective set successfully, thanks to our efforts, the support of our university and of all the people around us ”.


Congratulations, Gianella and Elias! What can we learn from this to help our local communities? Get involved if you have a personal or professional interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Encourage young people, particularly girls, to get involved. Connect with your higher institutions of learning and coordinate internships with local high schools. Connect high technology companies to schools to show the possibilities of what can be. Create STEM clubs. Get involved with local alumni associations and solicit help to take these ideas deep into the community. Major technology companies are in perpetual searches for good talent, and job opportunities abound. Encourage schools to reinstitute science fairs and sponsor math contests. Look for creative ways to be a STEM booster for your community.


The future is fast upon us, and AI (artificial intelligence) will be both a significant boon to the global economy and a disruptor. Untold jobs will disappear to machine learning, and many more will be created, with titles and roles we can only imagine. Will your future progeny and your community be ready for it? Because it’s already happening.

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Catalog #:

1221.100.01.011422

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