Innovation during the COVID-19 Crisis, Katherine Foster
These are the supplement notes from a briefing from Katherine Foster in the GDF Global Hubs Report Out, Tuesday 24th of March 2020 by ZOOM on the various ways the sector is mobilising to take action during the crisis. You can watch the full e-conference here, and read a summary of the key points here.
Webinar series on distributed systems as solutions
Founder of Penrose Partners, Blockchain & Data Security leader in Canada is presenting webinar series on distributed systems as solutions in a time of crisis and change, first one in two weeks on evolution of monetary policy with distributed systems, followed by working from home data security best practices: https://www.linkedin.com/company/penrose-partners/?originalSubdomain=ca.
Crowd funding, sourcing and action
Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum have used data and analytics to create real time monitoring of the Pandemic.
The Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation jointly established the Global MediXchange to help combat the global outbreak of the coronavirus . This facilitates online communication and collaboration across borders, as well as providing frontline medical
World Business Council for Sustainable Development is highlighting companies who are taking extra-ordinary business actions in relation to COVID-19.
Online hackathons innovation calls etc.
(Problem sourcing, partnerships for challenge definition and implementation)
Example: Online Hackathon VersusVirus (Swiss Parnters but open to global particpants) https://www.fr.versusvirus.ch/ “We are looking for daring and innovative ideas that will help Switzerland to show solidarity now and emerge stronger from the current difficult situation caused by the coronavirus. In a 48h online Hackathon, we want to develop functional digital or analogue prototypes to counter the virus with tangible solutions. For this to work, the #versusvirus Hackathon needs a strong, diverse community. That means people with very different perspectives and abilities. So you do not need to be a programmer or hacker to contribute.”
Business Support / Funding
Kabbage Payments™ — any business can sign up to sell gift certificates online, and anyone can purchase them to support participating small businesses https://newsroom.kabbage.com/.
Italian Red Cross Bitcoin Fundraiser
Trust and Media — UK NHS
UK, the NHS is working with tech giants including Google, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook on an effort to deploy accurate information on social media.
Hive, a group of “crypto-minded researchers, engineers, designers” and fans of the space that scores and ranks trustworthy social accounts has developed another algorithm to map the actual epidemiologists to follow on Twitter.
Blockchain AI and Emerging Tech
https://mycovid19.co/ initiative by Stan Stalnaker and Hub Culture — patient doctor data portal that allows for patient to own their data and give consent to doctors and researchers — free platform.
Atlanta-based software company Acoer has crafted a dashboard that tracks infections, deaths and recoveries occurring across the world in real time, based on Blockchain, which prevents information from being manipulated outside of the public eye.
App called HashLog, powered by Hedera Hashgraph. https://forkast.news/hedera-hashgraph-decentralized-coronavirus-tracker-hashlog/ allows researchers, scientists and journalists to easily understand and follow the spread of the virus, as well as its trends over time from a wide set of public data including data from the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, Clinical Trial Data and Twitter.
Insurance Claims
China used a blockchain-based settlement system to offer quick, one-time payments to victims of the coronavirus. Ant Financial has been able to process claims and make payouts to participants quicker, due to the decentralised, trust-free nature of blockchain technology,” https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinese-insurance-firms-use-blockchain-to-process-coronavirus-claims
AI
AI is being used to study the outbreak’s spread and is powering the search for treatments. Public health data surveillance companies Metabiota and BlueDot were both used to track the initial outbreak of the coronavirus. Cloudmedx takes it a step further by providing crowdsourced patient diagnoses to nearby hospitals so they can prepare.
Rise in telehealth AI-powered drug discovery platforms to search for possible treatments.
Big Data and Surveillance
US Government is in talks with the tech industry about getting access to aggregated and anonymous mobile phone data. Israel is in the early stages of a plan to use individual phone-tracking to warn users away from engaging with those affected with COVID-19. This raises the question of privacy and living in a surveillance state.
Drones
Disinfecting: Drones robots are being used to disinfect rooms, communicate with isolated people, take vital information, and deliver medications.
China Danish company UVD Robots that can disinfect patient rooms https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/medical-robots/autonomous-robots-are-helping-kill-coronavirus-in-hospitals
Patrolling
California https://www.ft.com/content/c7d0dee1-6125-475c-9cc7-78f4671d7cea
Fueling ETFs
3d Printing — questions open regarding potential for fintech per IP and white licencing
· Reverse engineering and 3d printing valves and masks
· Manufactures and schools joining forces
· Raises issues of IP and licensing — need for collaboration and partnership tools which have been a barrier to entry
General Digital supports
· Many apps and groups for exercise, entertainment, social support, mindfulness from social Groups on Facebook to companies offering extended or free services
Crowdsourcing Impact Questions and Answers: Employment questions and rights
- Growing issues of companies requesting employees take “Sabbaticals” (leave without pay)
- From international companies to local SMEs (Women Rock Switzerland string on this)
- Impact on difference socio-economic-geographic
- Women — SMEs- developing regions
- Women Rock Switzerland Facebook Group
- Daily bankruptcy sales of startups
- How we can understand the impact
- Harness remittance to get basic incomes
This input was crowdsourced with key contributions from:
- Jane Thomason
- Efi Pylarinou
- Kerem Kolcuoglu
Some of this content has already been forwarded to and included in the newsletter by the (United Nations) Secretary General Task Force on Digital Finance
Further reading: Fintech firms providing free tech through the C19 crisis, by Ron Shevlin
