The Epiverse - Distributed Pandemic Tools Program

Covid-19 exposed major gaps in our ability to aggregate and use data for pandemic prevention, detection, and response. Current approaches require pooled data, which is costly, time-consuming, and legally challenging. Distributed and privacy-preserving methods of analysis are an alternative for generating insight and present new opportunities to use commercially held “health-adjacent” data critical for pandemic analysis and modelling. However, despite the appeal of distributed and privacy-preserving methods of analysis, there are few working examples focused on disease analysis and none that are globally adopted. This proposal is to build, deploy, and scale innovative solutions – including infrastructure, tools, and analytical techniques to unlock data and enable distributed analysis. Phase 1 will focus on developing the novel software and privacy-preserving methods that will be deployed in Phase 2: - Funding top teams to develop a suite of generalizable, open-source epidemiological software and tools - Challenge funding call to develop privacy-preserving approaches for deployment on commercially sensitive/privately held data, which could be scaled and deployed in Phase 2. - 200 Days Architecture Challenge aimed at Big Cloud Providers to design the technical architecture for Phase 2. data.org will provide the central convening and coordination role, including grant-making, convening interdisciplinary specialists, project management, and strategic communication.