Every fifteen minutes a woman in India dies during childbirth. Four out of ten Indian children are born too thin or too short. One way to reduce these problems is to have more women stay in healthcare programs during their pregnancy.

Last year, a team of computer scientists and social workers developed artificial intelligence (AI) tools to identify ways to get pregnant women to regularly participate in free healthcare programs, including listening to life-saving information on their cellphones.

Using the tools, the Mumbai-based philanthropy ARMMAN cut the drop-out rate of women in its healthcare programs by a third. 

The team, which developed the tools, was led by Milind Tambe. He is a professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center for Research in Computation and Society at Harvard University. He is also the director of AI for Social Good at Google Research, India.

Earlier, Tambe’s team provided social network algorithms for a public health project in Los Angeles. This resulted in a major reduction in HIV risk behavior, compared to the traditional methods which are used to publicize HIV prevention information.  

Using machine learning and game theory, the team also built an AI model which boosts wildlife conservation efforts. The model predicts poaching activities and recommends patrols against them. It is deployed in 800 wildlife parks around the world, including in Uganda and Cambodia. In Cambodia, for instance, the model has led to a five-fold increase in removals of snares to trap animals and birds.    

In 2007, Tambe and his team applied computational game theory algorithms to devise ways to randomly set up checkpoints and canine patrols at the Los Angeles airport. This enabled the security agency at the airport, which serves 80 million passengers a year, to make the best use of its limited staff and resources. Tambe devised similar systems for the U.S. Coast Guard to patrol New York, Boston and other ports.     

In 2013, Tambe co-founded Avata, an AI management system. In 2020, the startup was acquired by Procore Technologies, a California based company which provides a cloud-based software for managing construction projects, reportedly for $4 million.

So far, Tambe has supervised 32 students who have completed their PhD; he has also mentored 13 Postdoctoral researchers. Currently, he supervises a team of 15 PhD students and postdoctoral students.

 Prior to joining Harvard in 2019, Tambe spent 26 years at the University of Southern California (USC), most recently as a professor in engineering. In 2016, he co-founded the Center for AI in Society at USC.  

Tambe earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and a MSc in computer science from BITS, Pilani, India. There is no mention of where he earned his undergraduate degree, in his LinkedIn profile or on the Harvard websites, apparently since he may have earned an integrated MSc degree.  

The spread of AI tools is criticized by some, including for its use to automate tasks and thereby cut jobs as well as for monitoring citizens using facial recognition systems, as in China. Through his work, Tambe demonstrates that, like most tools, AI can be put to good and bad uses. At Harvard, Tambe is collaborating with other researchers to use AI to tackle additional issues, including tuberculosis and rapid testing.

Speaking at an online seminar in January, Tambe emphasized the importance of working with local communities, stating that “it is of utmost importance that we as CS (computer science) researchers visit the field and understand for whom we are building the solutions.”

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