Editor,

RE: "How satellite images and deep learning can fight global poverty” (The New Times, August 20, 2016). Obviously, satellite images cannot fight the poverty alone. It is just another tool to do it. Basically the satellite images are associated with data of the World Bank and the predictability is confirmed by statistical test. It is not matter of opinions.

For the utility, World Bank cannot do a survey every year. Usually, the survey on energy, poverty, etc are done on a selected number of families. Satellite images can be done very day. Those images, together with surveys, can help researchers predict over the time and extend in other remote regions the information about poverty etc.

Stefano Cacciatore