WUI-Go!, a startup in the spring 2021 CITRIS Foundry cohort, has been awarded $1.23 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through its highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II program.
The company is a spinoff from the research group of Professor Kenichi Soga, who in 2022 received a $2.5 million NSF grant for wildfire-preparedness work stemming from a 2019 CITRIS Seed Award. Professor Soga is a scientific advisor for WUI-Go!
WUI-Go! is developing a personalized evacuation platform to help communities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) prepare for and respond to emergencies.
Using digital twin technology, traffic simulations and tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI), WUI-Go! provides residents with customized evacuation guidance and gives emergency managers adaptive planning strategies. Its initial focus is on preparedness, offering features such as virtual drills, multilingual maps and offline functionality. If tests with pilot communities prove successful, WUI-Go! plans to extend its platform into real-time evacuation support.
Read the full article and visit the WUI-Go! website at https://www.wui-go.com/.
