Vesedia Mobile Technologies is offering to deploy its location platform to help control the COVID-19 pandemic through tracking and dissemination of information about “at risk” infection areas and places, and times when they were known to have infection — a process referred to as contact tracing.
Vesedia is a technology startup with a suite of mobile apps for children and family safety based on a location-sharing platform and location-tracking artificial intelligence (AI).
“The platform would warn people that passed through these places at matching times,” explained Ruslan Shalaev, co-founder and team leader, Vesedia. Shalaev developed a popular app for family safety: Safely – Family Location; and serves as a lead research on user-location monitoring AI in an academic partnership with Binghamton University and Lviv National University.
The platform would be applicable after the initial pandemic is contained. “It would help with restarting the economy and resuming normal business operations by providing a mechanism to track, control and suppress new outbreaks,” Shalaev said.
Data Sources
Under the plan, people that test positive to COVID-19 would be asked to provide information about public places they visited in the preceding days, and at what times. Individuals that provide the information can confirm that it’s accurate from their phone location history.
The information would be anonymized by healthcare officials, and entered into a database that would be publicly accessible via a website and mobile app.
Image: Vesedia
Mobile App
The mobile app aspect is especially valuable from information dissemination standpoint, because other people in “at risk” areas can receive automated alerts to self-quarantine and get tested based on their device location history.
The app is ready and available for download in Google Play and Apple App Store.
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- Image: Vesedia
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- Image: Vesedia
Workflow diagram
Workflow diagram. (Image: Vesedia)
System architecture
System architecture. (Image: Vesedia)
Approach validity
The approach has been successfully applied in Singapore, but without active alerts, with dissemination of information being done manually. The Singapore government was able to contain the virus without shutting down businesses, schools, public transit and restaurants.
Vesedia location apps
Vesedia is a tech startup founded in 2016 by SUNY Binghamton Computer Science graduates. It developed SmartAI location tracking and sharing platform. Its apps include Safely – Family Location, Virtual Nanny, MeetCity – Live Events, Blind Date, Sponter – Social Network in partnership with Lviv National University and Binghamton University. The apps are available for download in the Google Play and Apple App stores.
Vesedia research on “Location-Based Behavioral Patterns Modeling” was published at Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems (IEEE/IDAACS) conference in Metz, France in 2019.