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.