lystn

When the coronavirus pandemic swept across the world in early 2020, Spain was one of the countries hardest hit. At the time, Nuria Oliver was a telecommunications engineer working and living in Valencia, one of Spain's 17 autonomous regions. She’d spent years working for companies like Microsoft, Telefonica, and Vodafone, using AI to analyze data from mobile networks to explore big questions about healthcare, economics, crime, and other issues—so she realized right away that mobile data could be an important tool for government leaders and public health officials trying to get a handle on the spread of COVID-19.

With the backing of Valencia's president, Oliver put together a team of scientists to analyze network data to understand among other things, how much people in Spain were moving around. That helped them predict infection rates, and to see whether lockdowns were really helping to contain the virus's spread. The team's predictions were so accurate, in fact, that when they entered an X Prize Foundation contest seeking the best AI-based pandemic response systems, they won first place. Nuria Oliver joins Harry to explain how they did it—and why mobile data makes a difference in the fight against the pandemic and other health threats.

Please rate and review The Harry Glorikian Show on Apple Podcasts! Here's how to do that from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

1. Open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. 

2. Navigate to The Harry Glorikian Show podcast. You can find it by searching for it or selecting it from your library. Just note that you'll have to go to the series page which shows all the episodes, not just the page for a single episode.

3. Scroll down to find the subhead titled "Ratings & Reviews."

4. Under one of the highlighted reviews, select "Write a Review."

5. Next, select a star rating at the top — you have the option of choosing between one and five stars. 

6. Using the text box at the top, write a title for your review. Then, in the lower text box, write your review. Your review can be up to 300 words long.

7. Once you've finished, select "Send" or "Save" in the top-right corner. 

8. If you've never left a podcast review before, enter a nickname. Your nickname will be displayed next to any reviews you leave from here on out. 

9. After selecting a nickname, tap OK. Your review may not be immediately visible.

That's it! Thanks so much.

Full Transcript

Harry Glorikian: Hello. I’m Harry Glorikian. Welcome to The Harry Glorikian Show, the interview podcast that explores how technology is changing everything we know about healthcare.

Artificial intelligence. Big data. Predictive analytics. In fields like these, breakthroughs are happening way faster than most people realize. 

If you want to be proactive about your own health and the health of your loved ones, you’ll need to learn everything you can about how medicine is changing and how you can take advantage of all the new options.

Explaining this approaching world is the mission of my new book, The Future You. And it’s also our theme here on the show, where we bring you conversations with the innovators, caregivers, and patient advocates who are transforming the healthcare system and working to push it in positive directions.

When the pandemic swept across the world in early 2020, Spain was one of the countries hardest hit. 

At the time, Nuria Oliver was a telecommunications engineer working and living in Valencia, which is one of 17 autonomous regions in Spain, the equivalent of U.S. states.  She’d spent years working for companies like Microsoft, Telefonica, and Vodafone, using AI to analyze data from mobile networks to explore big