Security & Safety
Remote Monitoring of Armed Conflicts
This project combines deep learning with open-source satellite imagery to support the ICRC in addressing violence in armed conflicts. Satellite images offer a non-intrusive form of observing surface changes related to conflict events, such as the impact of air strikes, burning villages, or the movement of heavy weaponry. The use of this remote sensing technology complements on-the-ground activities and is particularly valuable to gather information about conflict events in remote areas or areas with high security risks.
The ICRC already uses satellite images on an on-demand basis, manually assessing high resolution images to verify and document violations of humanitarian law. However, assessing satellite images manually is very labour-intensive and requires high-resolution images that are expensive to purchase, especially if entire countries need to be monitored. This makes it impossible to screen vast conflict areas on a regular basis with the current approach. To address this challenge, our project will develop an automated monitoring tool that combines deep learning with open-source satellite images of ESA’s Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite constellations, allowing the ICRC to monitor entire conflict areas in near-real time.
external pageProject page Remote Monitoring
The project is part of the external pageEngineering for Humanitarian Action Partnership between ETH Zurich, EPFL and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
ETH Contact Persons: Prof. Konrad Schindler, Prof. Jan Dirk Wegner, Dr. Valerie Sticher
Partners: Dr. Thao Ton-That Whelan (ICRC), Jonathan Drake (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Martin Wählisch (UNDPPA Innovation Cell)
Protection Framework for Digital(ized) Conflicts
For humanitarian organisations such as the ICRC, the digitalisation of conflict environments poses a series of concerns related to physical, societal, and psychological cognitive risks to affected populations. The main objective of this project is to develop a methodological framework that enables humanitarian actors to develop awareness and preparedness of the digital dimension of armed conflict, which will be the basis to design adequate responses to people’s needs. A core deliverable will be a tool that can be used easily by humanitarian workers to better detect and document relevant factors, such as risks and harms, of digitalized conflicts in order to develop adequate protection-centred responses and to state and non-state actors.
The project is part of the external pageEngineering for Humanitarian Action Partnership between ETH Zurich, EPFL and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
external pageProject Page Protection Framework
ETH Contact Person: Dr. Myriam Dunn Cavelty
ICRC Partners: external pageJoelle Rizk (Digital Threats Advisor), external pageMark Silverman (Digital Transformation and Data Advisor), Philippe Marc Stoll (Senior Techplomacy Delegate)
Additional Partners: Dr Camino Kavanagh, external pageKing’s College London, Enrico Formica, external pageUnited Nations