Covid 19: Indian technocrats develop AI driven app that leverages crowdsourcing for detection and action

Considering the huge challenges in front of the Indian government in tackling a rapidly spreading infection (more than 2,300 on date), a group of technocrats have come together to develop an app. The App (MySafeSIDE) is an Artificial Intelligence driven platform which provides the ability to crowdsource mobile data collection across any geographical area. Data collected by the citizens are then made available to the Government’s authorized COVID Task force (officials & volunteers).

The two member team (Niranjan Ramakrishnan, CHCIO, and Vice President Digital, Leixir Dental Group, US & India, and Snehal Bindra, Pre-Med Student, Univeristy of California Los Angeles and Research Coordinator, California Vascular Research Foundation) created the app within 48 hours to help the government respond quickly in a systematic manner.

Says Niranjan Ramakrishnan, “Considering the dreadful coronavirus that has gripped the entire world and our loving country, no one can deny the amazing and well-coordinated efforts of the Central and State Government and all our machineries fighting this pandemic to the best of their abilities. As a small contribution and as a helping hand towards the Government i, we have built a mobile app within 48 hours and are really confident that it could be of huge value in supporting government efforts in a great way. We would like to donate this gift to the government free of cost as a contribution from our end.”

Here is how the app works. As soon as the list of identified positive cases for the day is available, the health worker with the help of the app capture the following details: Travel History (during the last 21 / 14 days that includes mode of transport, vehicle details, destination, date & time, co-passengers and en-route details), Contact History (during the last 21 / 14 days that includes mode of data & time, location and duration), and Events History (during the last 21 / 14 days that includes mode of date & time, Duration, type of event, number of participants and close-proximity details). The system then maps travel and contact tracing dashboard for the war-room to work on.

Subsequently, the following communication may be possible. The app sends SMS to all the contacts as an alert asking them to do a virtual health screening through the app itself. Only those whose screening results are showing high and medium risk can be taken up by the healthcare worker to meet or talk individually. The app also allows complete contact tracing to multi-levels. The team wants to identify one crore volunteers to support the government in its efforts in fighting the unseen enemy.

More details on the app are available on the site, www.mysafeside.com