Inspiration

What## Inspiration

Lagos floods every rainy season - not because we lack drains, but because drains are blocked with plastic waste. In 2024 alone, Lagos recorded 200+ flood incidents. As a Lagosian, I have seen streets turn to rivers. I wanted to build a vision system that SEES the blockage, REASONS the flood risk, and ACTS before disaster strikes.

What it does

DrainSage is a 7-step AI vision system:

  1. Community worker takes a photo of a drain with phone
  2. Frontend (GitHub Pages + Netlify) uploads image
  3. AWS Lambda on Graviton4 ARM64 runs OpenCV 5 + UNet 3.2M model to SEE blockage %
  4. Image stored in Amazon S3 Data Lake
  5. Amazon Bedrock Claude 3.5 Sonnet REASONS: Is it high risk? What action needed?
  6. Amazon SNS sends SMS alert to LAWMA team
  7. Outcome: Flood risk mitigated, community safe

Live demo: Upload any drain photo, get instant blockage detection + AI reasoning.

How we built it

  • Frontend: HTML/JS on GitHub Pages (https://josephine2016.github.io/Drainsage-lagos-flood-safe/) + Netlify backup
  • Backend: Serverless Lambda Function URL on AWS Graviton4 - 40% cheaper, low carbon, COOL optimized
  • Vision Model: OpenCV 5 + UNet 3.2M parameters for segmentation
  • Storage: Amazon S3 for image lake
  • Reasoning: Amazon Bedrock Claude 3.5 Sonnet
  • Action: Amazon SNS for SMS alerts
  • Theme: Build vision systems that see, reason, act

Architecture: 7-box flow (Community Phone -> Frontend -> Lambda Graviton4 -> S3 -> Bedrock -> SNS -> LAWMA Safe)

Challenges we ran into

  • GitHub Pages deployment with index.html nested in folder
  • Lambda cold start with OpenCV layer - solved with ARM64 Graviton optimization
  • Making UNet model lightweight enough for Lambda 512MB
  • Converting webp images to png for Devpost gallery

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • 3 LIVE deployments: GitHub Pages, Netlify, and AWS Lambda Function URL
  • 7-step architecture working end-to-end
  • Graviton4 COOL optimization - 40% cost saving, low carbon
  • Real impact for LAWMA and Lagos flood prevention

What we learned

  • How to deploy serverless computer vision on AWS Lambda + Graviton4
  • How to chain S3 + Lambda + Bedrock + SNS for see-reason-act pattern
  • How OpenCV UNet can run in serverless with optimization
  • Importance of community-driven AI for African cities

What's next for DrainSage

  • Add IoT water-level sensors
  • Add Yoruba/Pidgin SMS alerts
  • Partner with Lagos State LAWMA for pilot in 3 flood-prone LGAs
  • Add map dashboard of high-risk drains

it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for DrainSage - Lagos Flood Safe

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