Sina Sajjadi and his team (Saeed Hedayatian, Yasaman Asgari, Alireza Hashemi) won the second place award in the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Hackathon, “Spread Truth, Not Disease.” hosted by the Task Force for Global Health’s Neglected Tropical Diseases Support Center.They were tasked with creating a solution for challenges surrounding rumors/misinformation related to NTDs.
They devised two solutions:
1- Rumor detection and hindrance strategy: Using sentiment analysis of online dialogues, they targeted areas with high rumor prevalence. They proposed increasing awareness in those regions, considering the network of interactions with the polluted water sources (infection network) and also the network of hierarchical social interactions (social network).
2- Educational board game: A board game was designed to teach kids about the dangers of interaction with infected water sources and also the role of chance in epidemic spreading.
The event and their solution is covered by the NPR at https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/06/10/1004317823/ready-set-think-hackathon-aims-to-kill-off-fake-health-rumors.
Network Inequality Group 
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