Institute for Smarter Government launches Canada's Opioid Summit ONE

WATERLOO, Ontario - June 26, 2019 - PRLog -- The Institute for Smarter Government is challenging students at every college across Canada and human service organizations to participate in Canada's first Opioid Summit One, a two-day hackathon event October 26/ 27 focused on applying data science to help reduce opioid death in 3,200 communities across Canada using big data and prescriptive analytic solutions.

The Canadian College system trains first responders that address the opioid crisis on the street everyday in a very practical way. Colleges across Canada will play an even bigger role in educating staff and implementing evidence-based solutions using data science with the first of its kind Opioid Summit One as the kick-off event for a national strategy. Research from the two-day summit will be available to every community through a portal that shares AI matched data and introduces collaboration partners that enable a community to approach the problem with experience and confidence.

The Institute for Smarter Government working with Colleges and Institutes Canada, Mohawk College, student federations and front-line service organizations are launching Canada's first opioid hackathon. The two-day Opioid Summit One will focus on data science to advance evidence-based prescriptive solutions that assist 3,200 communities across Canada.

Opioid Summit One is building on the success of the recent Mohawk College HEAD competition that challenged students to compete with one another, employing a variety of descriptive, diagnostic and predictive analytics techniques to analyze the opioid crisis with data. Dr. Steven Way, Professor of Analytics for Business Decision Making, McKeil School of Business, Mohawk College wrote, "Using technology and supporting data sets, teams prepared and modelled data to perform analysis and make recommendations to a judging panel. Teams prepared a poster and delivered presentations based on their analysis in two phases of competition over two days. We are really excited for the #FutureReady students at Mohawk College."

Dana Fox President/ CEO Institute for Smarter Government stated, "The opioid crisis is growing. The opioid pandemic continues to be the most challenging public health crisis in decades with the capacity to break the back of our healthcare system. 11,577 Canadians died of an apparent opioid-related overdose between 2016 and 2018 with 4,460 lives lost in 2018 alone." Fox went on to say, "For the first time in four decades, the life expectancy of Canadians did not increase largely because of the opioid crisis."

The Institute for Smarter Government is a global non-profit organization formed in 2016 after a TED Talk to help government create transformational strategies for complex problems using big data and predictive and prescriptive analytics.

For more information, please contact:

Dana Fox President / CEO and Founder Institute for Smarter Government

14 Erb Street West Waterloo, ON N2L 1T2

www.smartgov.co