The United Nations Development Programme and Baidu reached a strategic deal to build a big data lab together.
This lab aims to research and use big data technology to solve global issues like environmental protection, health, education, and disaster relief.
This lab will focus on using Baidu's big data technology to analyze and process industrial data and make trend prediction to provide suggestions for development strategy formulation at the United Nations. For the current stage, the lab will mainly research environmental protection and health sectors; while the future subjects will include education and disaster management.
The first environmental protection solution launched by the lab is an e-waste recycling light application named "Baidu Recycle". With this app, users can take a photo of their electronic waste and get the name, category and estimated scrap price for the item. Users in Beijing and Tianjin can arrange e-waste pick-up provided by recycling partner TCL Corporation. This service is expected to be available in more cities soon.
In the future, the UN-Baidu big data joint lab will establish an open platform and recruit more partners.
Financial terms of the deal were not revealed.