California faces over 7,000 wildfires each year, with enormous costs to lives, communities, and ecosystems. Responding faster requires distributed sensing and intelligence that can act in the field where traditional satellites and watchtowers fall short. http://Wywa.ai First Responder is an open-science initiative led with researchers from MIT and CMU, together with industry leaders and policy experts, to design and deploy a scalable wildfire early-warning network. The system combines ultra-low-cost LoRa-enabled chemical sensors with edge AI and vision-language models. These distributed “artificial noses” continuously monitor air for smoke and combustion signatures. When risk thresholds are detected, the sensors activate nearby edge vision systems that confirm wildfire presence and generate real-time alerts for first responders and civic authorities. We will present results from early deployments, highlight the LoRa network architecture and AI model training that make such systems deployable at scale, and discuss how open collaboration across academia, industry, and government can accelerate resilience. The session will include a live demonstration of how edge intelligence can empower communities to act in the earliest, most critical moments of wildfire response.
Anirudh Sharma
Anirudh Sharma is a researcher and inventor whose work spans human factors, speech and vision interfaces, and system design. With a research background at the MIT Media Lab and now at Amazon Lab126, he builds novel computing interfaces that merge advanced sensing with real-world applications. His first venture developed and shipped gait-sensing haptic insoles to help elderly and visually impaired people navigate through tactile feedback- now used worldwide. He later co-founded Graviky Labs, which turns air pollution into usable materials. His contributions have earned recognition from MIT Technology Review (TR35), Forbes 30 Under 30, TIME 100, and TED Global.
Navya Veeturi
Navya Veeturi is the founder of Wywa.ai First Responder, an open initiative focused on protecting communities and forests from wildfires through the power of low-cost sensors, edge AI, and generative intelligence. With a background in leading AI and data engineering teams at NVIDIA, Navya combines technical expertise, product vision, and community impact to build scalable, AI-driven solutions that empower first responders, local leaders, and citizens.
