Submit Your Project for the COVID-19 Detect & Protect Challenge!
The United Nations Development Programme Center for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development has teamed up with Hackster.io to launch the Covid-19 Detect & Protect Challenge, calling for open source projects to help combat the pandemic in vulnerable areas in the world.
Joined and supported by Avnet, AWS, Google, Microsoft, and many others technology partners including Seeed, this challenge aims to help:
- Design replicable, low-cost tools and resources to aid viral detection
- Flatten the curve in communities with preventive solutions
- Reduce the disease’s impact on the economies of these vulnerable areas
This extraordinary global situation demands a global response. As an answer, the UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development and Hackster.io are joining forces with the world’s brightest technology companies. We are calling on hardware and software developers, product designers, scientists, hackers, makers, and innovators to come together to work for those who will be hardest hit by this pandemic.
As COVID-19 has shown, challenge and crisis cross borders – impacting everywhere on Earth. However, innovation and ingenuity are also not constrained by geography. The COVID-19 Detect and Protect Challenge is an opportunity to find and apply the best and brightest of humanity, wherever it may be found.
The Challenge
Both hardware and software technology partners are coming together to help support the challenge and make final solutions available to people who will need them the most. The projects submitted on Hackster should meet one of the two main purposes.
Detect: Harness your skills to aid citizens and healthcare providers with everyday tools that support the diagnosis of the coronavirus and future outbreaks. Computer vision thermometers, smart oximeters, cloud-based heatmaps and apps, data science-backed insight, open-source hardware, or advanced computational models — all are welcome.
Protect: Imagine and invent apparatuses that help slow down the spread of the disease. 3D-printable protective equipment, easy-to-assemble hand sanitizing dispensers, public alerts, mass broadcasting tools, contamination monitoring, rapid face mask production with advanced or everyday materials — there are no limits.
Resources and Prizes
Need help bringing your ideas to life? Some partners are providing resources for you to build your solution. You can submit your concept and explain how you will use these resources in your proejcts.
And finally, the excellent panel of judges will pick the best qualifying 10 projects on a rolling basis. Winners will be notified and posted in the discussion tab. For more info about what you could win, visit the challenge page on Hackster. Other than winning prizes, some of the winners’ solutions may have a very good chance of materializing and landing in places such as Africa.
Other than winning prizes, some of the winners’ solutions may have a very good chance of materializing and landing in places such as Africa.
Links to the Challenge
Here again is the link to all the information including prizes, deadlines and how to participate. The deadline for project submission is June 30, 2020 at 12:00AM PT, and winners will be announced about 10 days later. Seeed is helping to connect the project with our African network, so if you have any ideas or suggestions for what solutions may be needed in Africa, please let us know too!
Follow this challenge on Twitter for the latest news #COVID19DetectProtect
In the meantime, stay safe wherever you are!
Seeed is continuously sourcing Covid-19 project stories. If you have made a prototype or have one in the works, we’d love for you to share with us. Write to [email protected]
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