I-Corps: Development of a smart food distribution software system

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The commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a decision-support system for humanitarian food relief networks which harnesses complex data to support large-scale distribution and resource allocation decisions. The human decision-making process is supported by intelligent autonomous agents that guide users through data modeling and visualization tasks tailored to the specific needs of the organization considering their specific objectives of 1) equitable allocation of resources; 2) cost effective distribution of resources; and 3) efficient use of scarce resources. Scarce resource allocation problems in humanitarian food relief networks consist of human (volunteer resources) and material (e.g., food, money). The commercial potential lies at the ability to make model-specific recommendations to decision-makers based on the agent's capability to learn from the user environment through data and human/computer interaction. The proposed system bridges the knowledge gap between sophisticated modeling tools and operations subject matter experts who may benefit from these tools but lack the domain-specific knowledge to implement them in practice.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a platform for humanitarian food relief networks that possesses machine learning and optimization capabilities interwoven with the human cognition capabilities. Specifically, the proposed technology leverages research in cognitive computing and data modeling to build an intelligent platform to empower organizations to integrate advanced data modeling into their operations. The vision is that this platform will function as a collection of intelligent agents supporting workers performing different functions as a team. In this context, intelligence implies the following four cognitive abilities: to remember and process large amounts of information, to visualize and understand complex concepts in the information, to communicate (e.g., provide instruction and guidance), and to learn from experience. The platform is designed to contain a robust operations and data modeling ontology to facilitate human/machine interaction of the intelligent agents with the team of workers and to facilitate the execution of the four cognitive abilities. This I-Corps team plans to investigate the market potential of this innovation, validate customer needs and how the innovation may alleviate such needs, and discern sustainable business models.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.