Fueled by family

A native of Nigeria, Ademola Adesokan grew up in a tight-knit communal town.

In his family of five, collective well-being and unity were instilled early. But when he was 9 years old, he realized a harsh reality: when disaster struck, help was often too slow to arrive.

“I lost someone very dear to me due to disaster management’s slow response time,” Adesokan says. “The person had cardiovascular disease. Before emergency services could arrive, we already lost them.”

This experience shaped Adesokan’s research as a Kummer Innovation and Entrepreneurship Doctoral Fellow at Missouri S&T, where he studied computer science to create a system to support the 911 emergency response network.

“When people call 911, they are usually in a perilous situation — often a matter of life and death — and need help quickly,” he says. “But depending on the volume of calls coming in at once and the amount of time spent on each call at the 911 center, they may have a delayed response during a time in which every second can seem like an eternity.”

Adesokan developed and trained a model that can track emergency posts people make on social media and then route the information to the appropriate agencies.

“People have already used social media during emergencies for years, but there has not been an interface to quickly fetch, process and perform different tasks before sending this information where it needs to go.”

Adesokan says he trained the model with social media posts from recent natural disasters, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. His system can review the content of the posts, including their text, emojis, hashtags and any other relevant information.

When multiple entities in one area use the system, it automatically identifies pertinent information, assigns the information a classification and sends it to the appropriate agency.

“Maybe someone is trapped in their home after a flood, and their phone only has a few minutes left before the battery dies,” he says. “They may not be able to stay on the phone long enough to reach a 911 dispatcher, but they or someone else who knows their whereabouts could post on a social media platform, and the primary agency handling rescues would receive an alert.”

This model could also be used in the event of a school shooting or during another time when people may need to quietly share their situation and cannot place a phone call. Agencies using this system would see an interface on their devices and not have to be on the actual social media pages. However, they could see the original posts and respond if needed.

“This wouldn’t be a replacement for the current 911 system,” Adesokan says. “However, it could significantly support it and get the information more quickly to the proper people.”

Adesokan is S&T’s first graduate of the I&E Fellows program and says he could not have conducted his research without the support he received from the program and his advisor, Sanjay Madria, a Curators’ Distinguished Professor of computer science.

This encouragement led him to win the National Science Foundation’s Spirit of I-Corps Award for his research.

“The funding and support students receive through this program is truly life-changing and helped shape my future for the better,” Adesokan says.

Adesokan completed his Ph.D. in two years and five months. This achievement was made possible by a strong support system at home. His wife, Maryam Bashir, a master’s student in technical communication at S&T, was a constant source of encouragement.

Their 1-year-old daughter, Amira Abdulganiyu, also played a special role, often “helping” her dad with his work.

“Whenever I’m doing research on my laptop at home, my baby is always with me,” he says. “Babies learn from what they see, so I let her see everything I do in terms of research. I think she’s learning how the keyboard works. She always follows where my fingers are going. I think that’s a good thing she’s learning these skills, and she’s going to take up what I’m doing if she wants to.”

Adesokan has big goals. He’s applied for funding with the Small Business Innovation Research program, which provides funds for small businesses with commercial potential to conduct research.

“I’m on the pathway to commercialization,” Adesokan says. “Right now, I’m building a startup, and I want to take it to the next level to build a business in the United States. I want to employ people to work so we can solve this problem together.” l