How to get supplies and field responders to the right place at the right time is a resource optimization problem. One company is using IoT, machine learning, and smart city technology to solve it.

There's more to COVID-19 support than knowing how many people are sick; you need to get them to hospitals. Those hospitals need ventilators, protective equipment, and tests to show up in time. That means they need to be ordered in advance based on prediction.

This sounds like a job for data visualization and smart city tech.

Smart city technology

While the Internet of Things (IoT) was teaching your thermostat and doorbell to be smarter, an entirely different side of the family was teaching the cities to become more self-aware. The simplest example of the smart city is the humble waste disposal team. That is, the people who pick up your garbage every week. Internet-enabled trash cans, combined with stop lights and trucks, can optimize travel routes. This lowers traffic congestion, reduces emissions and hourly employee costs. Residents see lower trash (or tax) bills. Everyone wins. The same sort of technology can time those stop lights, direct the fire department and police, plan parking spots or optimize water use. That is, the tools provide insight into how resources are used to deploy scarce resources more efficiently.