To help suspected novel coronavirus (COVID-19) victims, a gaggle of builders and physicians has launched CoronaTracker, an open-source, decentralized internet app.
Launched right this moment in beta, CoronaTracker lets sick people maintain monitor of each day signs by way of built-in well being surveys. The app is designed to assist clean and facilitate the method of sharing data with docs if ultimately in search of medical remedy. The app additionally options an academic element to assist stamp out misinformation concerning the virus and pandemic.
The decentralized app runs on Blockstack’s blockchain, with customers in a position to determine who has entry to their medical information. Based on CoronaTracker’s builders, this was an important consideration, particularly amidst fears about the sale or theft of private data.
“CoronaTracker is a proof of idea that emphasizes management of private data, the potential for information interoperability, safety and privateness as options to cope with siloed programs, and minimizes ‘information danger,’” mission organizer Anthony Albertorio defined to Decrypt.
“Decentralization is an effective technique to unfold the info to decrease danger to the person. Having all of your information in a single location begs to be hacked by ransomware that may cripple an establishment,” mentioned Albertorio.
Albertorio, a former ConsenSys “expertise evangelist,” defined that by decentralizing person information, the weak people who find themselves in search of assist by way of the app can relaxation assured that their private data is just not being bought to 3rd events. (Disclosure: ConsenSys funds an editorially unbiased Decrypt.)
“The customers are in management,” mentioned CoronaTracker’s mission organizer. “We regarded to Blockstack as a really perfect platform on which to construct CoronaTracker as a result of it decentralizes person data into particular person information silos, and since Blockstack’s motto is ‘can’t be evil,’ which prolonged our values of doing good to assist individuals on this unsure time.”
A screenshot of the CoronaTracker app. Picture: CoronaTracker
Based on a launch, the app’s mission advisory board contains pulmonologist Dr. Jigna Zatakia from Mount Sinai Hospital, emergency room doctor Dr. Kristen Kent, and Dr. Sigmund Hough, a medical rehabilitation neuropsychologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical College.
CoronaTracker was a successful mission within the #BuildforCOVID19 World On-line Hackathon, in addition to a top-20 finisher in Hack Zurich’s Code vs COVID-19 Hackathon. Together with additional UI and UX polish, the builders plan to broaden its SMS notification capabilities and add any additional rising COVID-19 signs as they seem.
“Collectively, with Anthony and Carter [Klein, engineering lead], we took our handful of builders and scaled CoronaTracker to an open supply group of 260+ individuals throughout 4 nations, 5 states, and 10 languages,” mentioned Brian Hough, UI/UX lead.
“CoronaTracker is actually a motion. We will look again on this scary time in our Earth’s historical past and say: We stood up, mixed blockchain and digital applied sciences, and fought again in opposition to COVID-19.”
