Here's how San Jose plans to use artificial intelligence to stop pedestrian traffic deaths

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- In the heart of Silicon Valley, leaders are calling on the best and the brightest minds.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan's office has partnered with tinyML Foundation, Sony and San Jose's Department of Transportation to launch a global traffic safety hackathon.

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After other programs failed to make it through the state government in the past, San Jose hopes a speed camera program can pass and help save lives.

The hopes of the city is to utilize community ideas on how to use "tiny machine learning's AI software" in cameras to capture quantitative data, not physical images, regarding the presence of pedestrians throughout the city.

TinyML Board of Directors Chairman Evgeni Gousev believes the technology can be used to better understand how people move around in order to protect them on the streets by using these predictive models to see what happens before things happen.

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San Jose's 21st deadly crash of 2023 is reminding leaders of increased importance for road safety and improvements.

A possibly invaluable tool when talking traffic and pedestrian deaths in a city where two more lives were lost this past weekend in hit and run crashes.

"We have 16 pedestrian fatalities so far this year," San Jose Department of Transportation's Colin Heyne said.

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"By this same date in 2022, we already had 22 pedestrian fatalities. But we have a goal at Vision Zero, no other goal is acceptable. Zero fatalities on our roads, he said.

You can submit your ideas here by mid-September and up to $3,000 in rewards for the best ideas will be announced in October.

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