Biosecurity

Technologies to Uncover Emerging Biothreats Sought

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has recently launched the Hidden Signals Challenge, a $300,000 prize competition seeking concepts for uses of existing data to uncover emerging biothreats. The Challenge calls upon data innovators from a wide variety of fields to develop concepts that will identify signals and achieve timelier alerts for biothreats in cities and communities.

Biothreats occur when harmful pathogens are either naturally or deliberately released, posing a risk to national security and public health. Often, biothreats are hard to immediately identify, and their spread can be hard to contain.

This Challenge aims to harness new technologies and data sources to identify emerging problems with more speed and confidence, so cities can ultimately resolve it faster. Successful concepts will explore connections between multiple readily-accessible data sources to develop real-time insights that can improve public safety responses to emerging biothreats.