Blockchain X Government of Canada
- Christina
- Apr 22, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 18, 2019
Another Blockchain Hackathon!
This hackathon was very unique, or maybe even somewhat odd in that this was taking place simultaneously across cities in Canada including Toronto, Ontario, Montreal, Calgary and more!
There was minimal facilitation and formality. No guidance but also no limitations! It was rather 100% participant driven in team formation and finding the topic.
I quickly formed a team with a group of girls who happened to have all participated in Cryptochicks Hackathon. As a new team, we decided to work on a new project.
We had a member on the team who had conducted intensive research on public health emergency with global disease outbreak of which she presented her research to UN. Woah! During the hackathon, we also recruited another team member all the way from Ottawa who was a public health professional.
What's the problem that we identified?
The lack of transparency, communication and cooperation due to the existence of data silos within public health authorities is hindering Canada’s efforts to manage epidemics.
Government of Canada determined that the following factors are a keyto a solution:
How do we identify if there is an outbreak?
How do we improve communicationbetween multiple government agencies?
How can we leverage Blockchain as our solution?
Our solution provides a digital ledger to share travel history of pseudo-anonymized digital identity of a high-risk person to a potential public health crisis. It enables the Government of Canada to proactively contain the transmission of contagious diseases and execute emergency protocols. It enhances real-time communication and collaboration between government departments, hospitals, and medical care providers.
Better prediction of expected number of patients can help estimate the potential demand of medicines, hospital equipment, hospital staff, hospital beds and quarantine measures. This solution enhances the Government of Canada’s ability to address a public health emergency by bolstering proactive crisis management of an outbreak through blockchain.
At the beginning of project, we were not aware of the CanBorder app. While we initially envisioned this featured to be added to the paper declaration form, we quickly adopted to the currently existing mobile app.
Link to prototype: https://invis.io/VYHMESTU5X9
What have I learned from this project?
Designing for consistency with an already existing mobile application.
Understanding blockchain technology and apply it to resolve a real-world problem.
Creating pitch video through screen capturing, audio recording and video editing.
What would I have done differently?
Consider using the device's location data to retrieve places that user visited (instead of manual entry).
The next step is to connect the UI with the back-end blockchain technology.
Co-designed with: Angela-Xizhen Cao, Chelsea Han, Sally Park, Pink Rathod
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