Bellwether
The first prediction engine for the Earth and everything on it
Bellwether is X’s moonshot to understand and anticipate changes across our planet. The team is harnessing AI and Earth information data to understand the probability of severe weather and predict their impact on communities, landscapes, and the built environment. Bellwether partners with the public and private sector to help with disaster planning, response, and recovery. If you're interested in collaborating, please get in touch.
Applying AI to the Physical World
The Bellwether team is pioneering a new way to apply AI to the physical world and help society respond more efficiently to natural disasters, mitigate the impact of catastrophic events, and better understand how our planet changes. The team is currently focused on three key areas: wildfire risk modeling and mitigation tools, insurance for natural disasters and scene assessment tools to support first responders after natural disasters.
Natural Disaster Resilience
Bellwether uses real-time data to help communities and businesses prepare for and respond to natural disasters.
The Bellwether platform understands and recommends action during all stages of a natural disaster: forecasting extreme weather events, assisting with rapid response in the aftermath of a disaster, and supporting mitigation efforts to reduce the impact of future events. The platform includes three offerings: Bellwether Fire, Bellwether Rapid Response, and Bellwether Insure.
Bellwether works with a variety of public and private sector partners, including SwissRe and the US Air Force.
Bellwether’s wildfire prediction tool
Wildfire Prediction
The length of wildfire seasons, the severity of fires, and the financial impact of these catastrophic events is increasing. Communities need new ways to assess, prepare, and protect themselves from this elevated threat.
Bellwether has developed a wildfire prediction tool that calculates fire risk for landscapes and structures. The tool estimates the likelihood of wildfire at any location by analyzing petabytes of historical data about the environment in combination with thousands of risk drivers like tree species, wind qualities, and types of infrastructure. The Bellwether model is the only system that can forecast wildfires up to five years in advance.
Bellwether aims to give public and private sector partners, homeowners, and emergency responders more granular information about wildfire risk, and the likelihood of impact on homes, businesses, and other structures.
Bellwether’s disaster response tool
Disaster Response
After a natural disaster, every minute counts—particularly when distributing relief. Bellwether’s tools help first responders react more quickly to mitigate the impact of catastrophic events like wildfires and floods. Bellwether’s geospatial image-matching tool instantly compares new aerial images of a disaster scene with older aerial imagery to help responders identify critical infrastructure within seconds and begin rescue efforts.
Bellwether has partnered with the Defense Innovation Unit, the National Guard, and Civil Air Patrol to help first responders identify critical infrastructure following extreme weather or natural disasters.
General Manager
Sarah is an award-winning innovator with two decades of experience across healthcare, sustainability, and technology. Working at the interface of human health, the natural sciences, and enterprise, Sarah has built a career leading teams from “zero to one” and then scale to solve important problems. She is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and the Wharton School. She continues to practice medicine part-time at Stanford Hospital.
