During a ceremony held yesterday (05) in São Paulo, the Péter Murányi Foundation awarded Sos-Chuva (Severe Weather Observation and Forecasting System), a project and application developed by INPE in partnership with Cepagri from Unicamp, with Agência FAPESP, USP - University of São Paulo and State Civil Defense.
The foundation has been rewarding works in the areas of Education, Health, Food and Science & Technology since 2002. The 2019 edition was dedicated to the S&T category. There were 140 entries, with the three best, according to an evaluation committee, being presented, debated and voted on this Tuesday.
According to the organizers, the award demonstrates how much the scientific community is engaged in solving the problems faced by society, taking into account the following tripod of criteria: innovation, practical application and improvement in quality of life.
This year's winning work, SOS-Chuva, is a severe weather observation and forecast system. It integrates real-time information from satellites, radars and numerical simulations, made available through an application for institutions (such as Civil Defense, municipal governments and meteorology centers), as well as for any citizen who downloads the application on their cell phone. It's not available everywhere yet. It is complex scientific information made available to the population. And articulating all of this in real time was a major innovation challenge. The user can add information, as if it were a weather Waze. In short, it allows the user to know where it is raining (and how much), lightning is occurring and where it will rain in the next few minutes.
Second place went to a program conducted at #UFRGS: Development of Oat Cultivars for the Subtropics. In the 1970s, Brazil imported oats, but today it exports not only oats, but cultivars to Uruguay, Argentina, India and the USA. Continuous development for more than twenty years, from classical breeding to molecular biology techniques.
Third place went to the #UFSC project: Development of Medicine (anti-inflammatory and analgesic) from plants. It's the complete cycle: from the survey of promising plants to the commercialization of the medicine. The partnership is with Aché, that is, a university-company partnership.
Recognition
The award granted by the Péter Murányi Foundation to SOS-Chuva, in addition to being rewarding, acts as a balm at a time when the situation with science funding is so complicated in Brazil. The statement was made by meteorologist Ana Avila, researcher at Cepagri and member of the team that developed the project. “I consider this award to be an important recognition of the work carried out collectively by experts from different institutions. The project is very complete. It ranges from the state of the art in this area of knowledge to the application of its results, which can be used both by organizations such as Civil Defense and by citizens in general”, explains the scientist.
Ana Avila points out that SOS-Chuva competed with 139 other projects, all with a high degree of excellence. “This type of distinction shows that we have the competence to carry out high quality research in the country. It also demonstrates that meteorology should still occupy a large space on the scientific agenda, mainly because of ongoing climate change and the greater frequency with which extreme weather events are occurring.”
The award, continues the Cepagri researcher, also has a motivating nature. "We are on the right way. Many things have been developed, but many others still need to be done. We need to take what has already been accomplished and improve and expand it. In 2016, for example, microexplosions occurred in Campinas. It is a climate phenomenon that we need to study, to better understand how it forms and occurs. Another point we want to advance is language, so that we can reach the general population and show them the importance of investing in science”, she concludes.
To download the app for free: http://bit.ly/2ksPlgU
More on the subject: http://bit.ly/2dKHXNk
Explanatory video:
