The dimension of network dynamics and the future of Maps: Navigation by avoiding infection!  

Google with its PageRank and Facebook with its EdgeRank has demonstrated the hidden value in networks when we want to organize and share information. Could the pandemic X spread be controlled and managed with the power of networks? 

These networks could be around the daily commute of people and the people(phones) they cross/interact. Maybe they are not abstract as we have the definition of a friend/contact in our online social networks but more physical and real. The mobile data with the base stations for location / GPS data crowdsourced by individuals can already indicate those dynamics where every cell phone becomes a proxy of an infection source/potential receiver. 

Some of this data has also been at the heart of contact tracing programs. However, it mostly a reactionary approach and not fully leveraging the network models. They only predict who can get the infection next basis the proximity. Could this be valid also for other metrics like recency or overall mobility score of the person? 

Apart from the network data, other data on search results for example is useful. Google with its famous flutrends is able to predict flu outbreaks when users are searching for symptoms online. Facebook/Twitter and other networks has also emerged as a source for spotting disaster news ahead of the traditional channels. However, we have to at times deal more with the fake news and it becomes a double edged sword at times. 

On design of comprehensive systems to manage crisis we also have some good examples. Google partnered with city of Lahore in 2012 to build a mobile phone driven approach to manage the dengue outbreak successfully. The Ushahidi platform started many years ago in Africa as a crisis management platform for people to avoid violent / rioting mobs.

South Korea has emerged as a winner in handling COVID-19 among other nations with a comprehensive contact tracing program. However, such centralized contact tracing programs are a first step towards a surveillance state. 

Hence, there is an urgent need to come up with a decentralized bottom up initiative for people to use power of their mobile phones and leveraging the network dynamics as they navigate their city (day to day) life. 

Could this decentralized approach lay foundation of a machine to machine architecture where the navigation applications of tomorrow can show us the route not just by traffic or time but also avoiding infection. Maybe time for us to considers a systems approach for avoiding infection and enable the data collection in a secure and private manner where citizens are empowered and can contribute to societal good. 

What could we do better to handle COVID-19?

A longer term solution for taming a biological infection at times is also vaccination/treatment. The lessons learnt from COVID-19 also shows that we have to also prioritize the certain population sections on age groups and comorbidities. Vaccination of the world cannot happen at once and we need to prioritize who gets the vaccine first. 

Could we have also leveraged the modeling of data and leverage the contact tracing program data especially around mobility and prioritized potential super spreaders first?  

Imagine, If at the edge (mobile phone) there is a possibility of calculating a mobility score, maybe people who move more around the city especially with public transport in the last month or year could be prioritized vis-à-vis someone with less mobility and private transport. 

Leveraging the fourth industrial revolution: digital twin of a citizen

In Norway every citizen has a person number, probably that is largest (digital) intervention for every citizen which then leads them to prove their identity online using a bank id. 

In 10-15 years from now would a citizen also have a digital twin extending what the state offers to them as of today? What would this digital twin contain? The disease burden of that person, their genome information and disposition to a biological intervention, their social network , their mobility pattern maybe. Can a citizen own their digital twin and download ‘what-if scenarios/profiles’ to generate risk scores and advisory customized for them basis the pandemic X event and make an informed choice versus a generic advise for every one which often is minimum action and not sufficient to contain the pandemic.   

A university of Helsinki project has developed an AI model which can accurately predict the mode of transport used by the individual and considerations are being made by the city transport to do away with ticketing system and bill people as per the usage determined by the mobile application on their movement during the day. Could such systems contribute in building a digital twin of the citizen and their ability to spread / control an infection in future?

For citizens to adopt such digital interventions, trust is very important. Estonia has done some of the seminal work in building a digital society in Europe and a good model for the Nordics to emulate. At the heart of this governance revolution is the X road architecture, which is a cryptographic marvel that is decentralized in its approach and also generates access logs for citizens to have an overview of who is accessing their data!  

Who will survive and who will perish? Birth of a contact-less economy!

At the heart of the pandemic we have seen that doctors had to make hard choices when they are hard pressed for resources, who gets access to a hospital bed or a ventilator. Or put the other way around who gets to survive and who gets to perish. Maybe, there is not a correct answer for this and in future certain AI models can prioritize the access to resources if we ever come to that situation. But what should we do so that we do not end up there? Maybe the digital twin of a citizen can give the survival rate of the person and enable rendering of limited resources to the more vulnerable ones compared to the privileged ones. 

The biggest lesson that COVID-19 teaches us is that the countries , organizations which were ready to operate without contact did better. This has led to the birth of a new era called a contact-less economy! At the heart of this is the digital infrastructure, whether it is broadband or video conferencing solutions. The ecommerce and delivery companies have to grow overnight to service the demand, while the small medium enterprises have to shut down which relied on personal contact or they adopted the digital platforms overnight to deliver their services.

We have also seen a sudden emergence or accelerated usage of robots/drones for cleaning and medicine delivery in hospital and transport (trains) environments where humans could avoid exposure by using robots!  

Design thinking, Service design and converting challenges to games! 

We need a concerted effort where society in general has to participate and think about what-if scenarios and prepare a plan which is bottom up! In Europe the service sector is a big contributor to the economy and hence the state should have a strategic foresight on possible disruptors and a plan b ready. Maybe, we need to have a nationwide brainstorming day (schools / universities / companies)  on what-ifs once a year and curate the best ideas and catalogue them. An expert team comes up with interventions to redesign the services to minimize the service disruption and safeguard the vulnerable populations. 

The institute for the future develops games as a way of engaging young minds to solve and navigate the difficult challenges/doomsday scenarios of the future. Nordics and Finland in general has emerged as a country which has some of the top gaming companies in the world and houses world class talent in game development. If we can bring the best game designers to develop some of the near future scary ‘what-if’ scenarios into engaging games. Maybe, the citizens can better navigate the pandemic and who knows that we can prepare a cadre of citizens who can be a ready task force for the country and the globe to better handle the situation when it occurs! 

Maybe, we need a sandbox to try the new service ideas and robots/drones that are needed to realize them. This could be a physical space for installation of future services in the city where citizens at large can interact with these futuristic approaches and in a pandemic situation they can be scaled to country level. Such an installation space needs to have future networks and state of the art sensors and actuators. (5G and later 6G with Augmented and Virtual Reality state of the art equipment with university courses and hackathons for young minds and citizens to be engaged) Could this vision be part of an Innovation District or a Digital Innovation Hub in Europe?  

“Chance favors the prepared mind, and opportunity favors the bold.” – Louis Pasteur

Rapid Diagnostics 

We have seen during the covid-19 , testing for covid has been a big bottleneck. Often the issues are more to do with supply chain and political will than the actual technical aspects. Newer approaches like CRISPR have offered tests that are with faster turnaround times. Apart from detecting the virus in the sample with traditional approaches. 

Now with the second wave of COVID-19 in India, some companies are trying non traditional approach of testing developed in Israel basis the measurement using breath. Helsinki Airport used sniffer dogs to detect COVID-19 on the Helsinki Airport. AI based models can also detect COVID-19 from a cough sound recorded on a normal smartphone. So as we progress into the contact less economy, it may be interesting to develop non invasive method of screening and testing so that we do not have to stop the traffic flows but rather catch the infected ones early and prevent them to spread the infection. The small canadian company BlueDot was much in news for accurately predicting the pandemic outbreaks basis the flight patterns. 

If these test kits can also be DIY (Do It Yourself) to be used by passengers or normal city dwellers and results to be uploaded to their cellphones. May even provide a comprehensive view of the city of the country in terms of the pathogen burden. This will then be comparable to the weather prediction system today which relies on thousands of nodes measuring temperature and other parameters from ground and providing the prediction that people may rely on. Now weather these DIY kits would be connected to your sewage pipes processing the morning flush or a test kit that is used consciously may depend on the region where one lives. 

Summary 

We have seen after the first wave of COVID-19 that countries have seen more loss of life even in the second wave and the third wave. The same happened with the Spanish Flu hundred years ago. So, maybe it is predictable that we lack strategic foresight when it comes to pandemics. Or maybe we can put our act together and not be complacent about it.  But probably we need more than that, maybe the ports (Airports specifically) of tomorrow would be no less than a state of the art diagnostic lab. Where dozens of tests could be performed in a matter of minutes or seconds and at times non invasively from a distance.