A team composed of students from all over the UP System emerged as one of the three winners in the Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) 2021 Solution Challenge.

UP Systeam, composed of Rex Ronter Ruiz (UP Diliman), Jian Asiado (UP Los Baños), Joerian E. Gauten (UP Open University), and Patricia Marie C. Garcia (UP Visayas Miag-ao Campus), created the cloud-based disaster risk management system called Island Response and Intervention for Systemic Evacuation (i-RISE).

Their system was chosen based the technology they used and their project’s impact.

According to Ruiz, i-Rise is a disaster risk management platform specially developed for the flooded islands of Tubigon, Bohol.

Composed of a fabricated tide gauge, a web application, and a mobile application, it monitors water and tide levels and automatically warns local authorities before high tides or extreme weather conditions. It utilizes Google’s Flutter, Cloud Function, Cloud Firestore, and Firebase.

Authorities can use the web application to collect information, broadcast evacuation instructions, and educate the populace, while residents can use the mobile application to report incidents and request for rescue during extreme conditions.

During the project’s development, the team sought the advice of experts from Project NOAH and the Coastal Sea Level Rise-Philippines Project (a collaboration between the UPD College of Engineering (COE) Department of Geodetic Engineering and two government agencies).

Ruiz is a graduate student of the COE environmental engineering program and is i-Rise’s project manager and local researcher. He conducts collaborations with local government units and barangay officials, performs focus groups discussions and baseline information surveys, implements testing of the system, and gathers user feedback.

The 2021 Solution Challenge is an annual competition by Google Inc., where students create solutions for one or more of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. i-Rise answers Goals 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and 13 (Climate Action).

They and the other winners were announced during competition’s Demo Day on Aug. 31, livestreamed on Youtube.

Among the prizes UP Systeam won are a one-year subscription to Pluralsight, Google merchandise, customized mentoring from Google, a feature in the Google Developers Blog, a Chromebook, and a coffee chat with a Google executive.

Ruiz said the team is happy about the additional attention the win has brought the project, inspiring them to “fully implement and to expand the project not only in Tubigon but also to other flooded and vulnerable islands in the Danajon Double Barrier Reef Bank of Bohol and the rest of the Philippines.”

i-Rise is currently in its first phase, and the team aims to complete the rest of the project by next year. Last June, they were granted technical assistance by the Climate Technology Centre Network and the United Nations Environment Programme.