Apply Now: Data Challenge for #COVIDaction

Within both developed and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the response to COVID-19 requires quality data to assess current testing, infection, and death rates; identify infection hot spots; track medical personnel and inventory; and make key decisions around how to mitigate the economic impact of contagion control measures. This data-intensive response is required for national and local governments, public health personnel, the private sector, and community-based organisations to make the critical decisions needed to save lives.

Led by DFID’s Frontier Technologies Hub, this Challenge invites applicants to submit data innovations that may support LMICs in their response. Selected applicants will receive a mix of support that may include the following:

• Funding to mobilise or pivot, including matchmaking and rapid deployment of grant funding of up to £50,000.
• Capacity support from the FT Hub network, which providesaccess to a global pool of academic, business, government, and NGO experts (within each category area) and access to DFID + UK GOV country networks.
• Brokering new relationships: Participation in a virtual showcase and published landscaping to demo selected data innovations.

Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash

SITUATION: LMIC governments and civil society often lack the digital data infrastructure to capture, share, and use this data in the timescales and distance needed for COVID. Many governments and local organisations, especially at community and district levels, still rely on paper-based manual data collection systems, which are both too slow and offer too much risk to personnel to meet rapid data demands.

In response, many LMIC governments and organisations and their international development partners are investing in and rolling out new digital tools and approaches for COVID-19 responses. For example, many LMICs are looking at and deploying:

• Analysis and interoperability solutions to identify factors that may contribute to the pandemic, help understand the economic and social outcomes of lockdowns and travel restrictions, and the impacts of COVID-19 on different population groups.
• Data sources and collection tools that can be used by local, district, and national governments and community-based organisations for contact tracing, supply chain management, deployment and training of medical personnel, distribution of food and other supplies to vulnerable populations, and tracking testing and infection rates. Existing data sources (such as geospatial data, demographic data, road systems and transportation patterns, and cell phone records) are being looked at as potential proxies or added layers to health management data to help provide context when physical presence is not possible.
• Epidemiological models appropriate for LMICs, which tend to have younger populations, reduced access to healthcare, higher rates of co-morbidity, more informal and labour-based employment, and lower household income than higher-income countries. These models are essential for countries to identify and predict contagion patterns so they can determine the best course of action for their populations, who often are less able to sustain quarantines or social distancing due to the nature of their economies and housing environments.

PROBLEM: Many in the global health and humanitarian community have learned from previous emergency responses, such as from Ebola, the dangers of rolling out digital data systems without sufficient information, protections, and strategic planning. There are growing concerns that some digital tools, such as those for contact tracing, come with significant privacy and security implications, including possible misuse of information. Other potential concerns include under-representation of certain populations or undermining existing data-reporting structures. Laws such as GDPR and local data protection regulations are still in effect during this emergency, meaning that implementers of these tools must demonstrate good data governance and management over the data being collected, used, shared, and analysed.

In addition, core approaches such as the Digital Principles for Development, the International Aid Transparency Initiative, and Responsible Data have increasingly informed the ICT4D and digital data community to set clearer standards for how tools should be designed, selected, and implemented to support development values such as digital inclusion, sustainability, do no harm, and data sovereignty.

SOLUTION: DFID’s Frontier Technologies Hub is launching a Data Challenge, with four specific targets, to help development partners identify, understand, and select different types of tools and approaches, in alignment with current best practices and key development principles in ICT4D.

The Frontier Technology Hub will support DFID, host governments, and other development partners in helping understand the current landscape of data tools and approaches responding to COVID-19, looking at key elements required for good data quality, usage, sustainability, and data protection for LMICs. The FT Hub will help match specific digital data needs with specific tools and approaches, and, where appropriate, provide seed funding for innovative approaches.

APPLICATION: Building on the work of other development partners, the Frontier Technology Hub is asking you to apply to the following Challenge target areas. The deadline for submissions is May 18th at 11:59pm BST.

APPLY: Data-use solutions that support data integration and analysis

APPLY: Data sources and collection tools that inform response

APPLY: Epidemiological modelling to support response and planning

APPLY: Responsible data needs in COVID-19 data systems

THE OFFER: As noted earlier, the Frontier Tech Hub will provide a mix of support to selected applicants. This includes the following:

Funding to mobilise or pivot:

• Rapid deployment grant funding of up to £50,000 for selected applicants.
• Matchmaking to DFID (or other donors) programmes providing funding.

Capacity support from FT Hub network:

• Access to a global pool of academic, business, government, and NGO experts, including technology, business model, policy, clinical/health, fundraising, legal, etc. to ‘team’ around an innovation.
• Access to DFID + UK GOV country networks: tech ecosystem, corporate, government ministries, multilateral organisations, etc., to support mobilise, and scale or replicate.
• Dedicated guidance to build, measure, and learn quickly.

Brokering new relationships:

• Published landscaping (per target area) to highlight appropriate COVID-19 data solutions.
• Participation in a virtual showcase on or around 20 May, 2020, to demo data innovations to other funders and implementers.
• Support with IP issues and replicability, where appropriate.

WHY WE’RE DOING THIS

This is part of an initiative led by DFID’s Frontier Technologies Hub, i.e. #COVIDaction: Building a Technology and Innovation Pipeline for the COVID Pandemic, for more on the initiative please see here.

For questions about the calls, please contact the #COVIDaction Data team at: COVIDaction-data@hellobrink.co

Originally published at https://medium.com on May 6, 2020.