There ARE politicians like me out there (I'm running for a local Florida Mosquito Control position) who want to be proactive and even gasp incorporate technology into the solution. What most people don't know is that the mosquitoes known to spread Zika (Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) are not effectively controlled by traditional night time spraying of pesticides. This is because they are active during the day and the pesticide needs to contact them while they are flying around. Big problem.

I've owned, operated, and developed very large online communities for more than 12 years. I want our local mosquito control district to create software modeled along the idea of the Neighborhood Watch program law enforcement agencies utilize. It will be, “Neighborhood Mosquito Control (NMC)”. On a street by street basis people will volunteer to be part of the NMC program. These people will receive training from the local mosquito control district on how to identify and map mosquito breeding locations and how to use BTi, a larvicide often used in organic gardening and that is the active ingredient in, “Mosquito Dunks”. They will also be provided BTi at no cost. These people will be responsible for communicating with neighbors who want to take part in the program. They will help them remove mosquito habitat, educate them about best practices, and assist them as needed. For example, let’s say the disabled senior down the street can’t clean out her clogged gutters, they would help with that. In addition, they would toss BTi into areas of standing water such as culverts or low lying areas they have found are breeding areas. This should not only help reduce the proliferation of the mosquitoes that spread Zika, but other mosquitoes as well. And some reasonably simple software could automate the entire process to greatly increase its efficiency and efficacy.

If anyone out there wants to begin developing such software, I bet you could make some good money licensing it out...