Submitted
2025 Global Health Challenge

Augur AI : Simulation Sandbox

Team Leader
Shaurjya Mandal
Our solution is an artificial intelligence enabled software program. Problem: A user (e.g., a local health officer) might want to simulate an intervention but isn't sure about the best parameters or specific local factors to consider. They might ask, "How should we improve vaccination rates in District Y?" Simulation Engine 1. The RAG system could retrieve relevant documents associated with...
What is the name of your organization?
Social Simulation Engine
What is the name of your solution?
Augur AI : Simulation Sandbox
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Simulation sandbox to democratize decision making at local level by designing context-specific solutions and testing their real world impact
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Boston, MA, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Not registered as any organization
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
The exclusion of local community context and human preferences in designing health intervention or strategic decision-making poses significant challenges. 1. 40% of health programs face delays due to mismatched community expectations due to top down planning and lack of community understanding 2. Over 70% of public health policies analyzed in 2020 lacked proportionality, leading to unintended consequences like increased poverty and educational disruptions. 3. Programs using community-based participatory approaches report 30% higher adherence and 20% better health outcomes by addressing local social determinants (e.g., housing, nutrition). 4. Tailored interventions, such as mobile clinics and culturally competent care, reduce hospitalizations by 15-25%. Ignoring local context perpetuates systemic inequities, reduces intervention efficacy, and risks human rights violations. Crucial decision-making power and advanced analytical tools are often centralized, far from the front lines. Integrating community participation and adaptive policies is critical for equitable, sustainable health outcomes. Our solution addresses the gap in developing local solutions for local needs While LLM based tools offer unprecedented, they risk widening the gap if insights aren't democratized. We address this critical gap by putting powerful foresight tools (AI powered simulation sandbox) directly into the hands of those closest to the problems.
What is your solution?
Our solution is an artificial intelligence enabled software program. Problem: A user (e.g., a local health officer) might want to simulate an intervention but isn't sure about the best parameters or specific local factors to consider. They might ask, "How should we improve vaccination rates in District Y?" Simulation Engine 1. The RAG system could retrieve relevant documents associated with District Y (e.g., past health reports, community assessments, ethnographic studies, national guidelines on vaccination) via web search. 2. Incorporate qualitative and local knowledge by indexing unstructured text documents like meeting minutes, feedback forms, narrative reports to adjust simulation parameters. 3. The simulation engine is trained on frameworks to map complex systems, structural causal models and decision thresholds by recent public health research, WHO guidelines. Solution • Suggest specific, measurable intervention parameters for the simulation (e.g., "Based on recent reports of transport barriers in District Y, consider simulating outreach clinics vs. improving transport vouchers.") • Automatically populate parts of the simulation setup with context-specific baseline data or assumptions (e.g., known rates of vaccine hesitancy from a local survey) • Communicate simulation findings in graphs, structured narrative or GIS visualization Demo - https://youtu.be/LhOetCwuTwM
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our ultimate beneficiaries are the underserved communities. By empowering local leaders to easily incorporate individual voices and societal narratives to design more effective, context-specific health strategies, Augur AI indirectly but in a powerful evidence-based way leads to: 1. Improving access to care – by better designed programs which includes community voices, address societal taboos and equity. 2. Improve health outcomes - tailored to community needs 3. Local relevant ideas can be transformed to action, in an evidence based trusted manner Our primary users are local health decision-makers: clinic managers, district health officers, field managers for NGOs, and community health leaders. Augur AI empowers them by providing accessible foresight capabilities previously unavailable at the grassroots level. 1. Strengthen local capacity – by democratizing complex analytical tools and insights 2. More responsive and prepared health interventions as it rooted in the community it serves 3. Improving self sufficiency and sustainability by effective and efficient use of investments and resources 4. Increased efficiency and impact of local health investments. Currently, we are working with KPJ hospital system in Malaysia serving 3.3 million patients annually. We are building a simulation sandbox to understand chronic care needs of the population and chronic care at home as a potential intervention.
Solution Team:
Shaurjya Mandal
Shaurjya Mandal
Co-founder
Himi Mathur
Himi Mathur
Doctoral Student