Biosecurity

Department of Homeland Security launches competition for detection of emerging biothreats

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) launched Tuesday the Hidden Signals Challenge, a competition that seeks ideas for novel uses of existing data to discover emerging biothreats.

The competition offers a $300,000 prize.

“This Challenge is one of the many ways S&T is working to keep our communities safe,” DHS Acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology William N. Bryan said. “The technologies and data sources available today present an unprecedented opportunity. By harnessing new streams of information, we may ultimately identify and resolve an emerging threat faster.”

Concepts should use connections between multiple existing data sources to uncover real-time insights that would enable cities to respond to emerging biothreats more quickly and effectively. Ideally, the uses will identify signals that emerge zero to ten days from the first instances of exposure using data that becomes available less than 36 hours after inputs are received.