The CoVIDathon — Decentralised AI against CoVID-19

A hackathon to develop and launch open-source code using AI and/or blockchain to combat COVID-19

The extremely unfortunate medical crisis that currently confronts the human species can be expected to have its upsides along with its downsides. One of the few positive things about crisis situations is the potential they have to bring people together.

It is with this spirit that the teams at DAIA, Ocean Protocol and SingularityNET have decided to divert some energy from their usual pursuits to launch ‘CoVIDathon’ and online Hackathon designed to aid in dealing with Covid-19 and related issues. Leveraging decentralised AI for positive social impact and connecting our global community of medical, AI, and blockchain experts to promote positive change.

CoVIDathon

The goal of the CoVIDathon is to do whatever we can to leverage the resources of the decentralized AI community to combat the COVID-19 virus and its various consequences.

Put more formally, the mission is: Developing and launching open-source code using AI and/or blockchain to combat COVID-19, reduce risk from future infectious outbreaks, and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

The CoVIDathon is hosted on Devpost, with a dedicated GitHub repository for open collaboration, and will initially run for two months​. ​The hackathon will officially start on April 1st and proposals for the first phase can be submitted until May 1st.

Teams that enter the initial prototype stage will go on to the next phase. Projects, companies and enterprises interested in supporting the initiative are welcome to join as an active or a major supporter (details below). In order to ensure alignment with the project mission and ethics, all requests for collaboration with CoVIDathon will be screened by the project’s founding members.

The organizational work for the hackathon has been driven primarily by Ocean Protocol and SingularityNET, during the earliest preliminary stage. However, participation during the next phase has been offered by various DAIA member organizations, who are coming on board at two different levels:

Level 1: Active Supporter

Providing active technical support for CoVIDathon participants who want to use tools created by a certain member organization’s decentralized AI tech in their work

Marketing the CoVIDahon in a relevant community

Leveraging PR resources to help publicize COVIDathon

Level 2: Major Supporter

Providing developer time from a project’s in-house team, via encouraging the project staff to contribute to or launch their own CoVIDathon projects

Contributing funds (in tokens or cash) to the prize purses for CoVIDathon participants

Decentralised AI Against Covid-19

In order to maximize the contributions made in the CoVIDathon, we are not requiring code developed to initially be deployed within a decentralized AI network. However, the intention is that all highly valuable code developed in the CoVIDathon will be deployed in one or more decentralized AI networks, whether during the CoVIDathon or slightly thereafter.

Given the time-sensitive nature of the situation with COVID-19, we are prioritizing speed in getting CoVIDathon launched — meaning that some aspects of the hackathon’s organization will be assembled in an agile fashion as the early weeks of the CoVIDathon proceed.

Hackathon Tracks

CoVIDathon participants will be invited to contribute to multiple tracks. An expert panel of judges is currently being assembled, including AI, blockchain and medical experts, to assess the contributions to each track both at the end of the 2 months as well as progress proceeds incrementally.

CoVIDathon will include four tracks:

Track One: Privacy and Sovereignty

Data is all-important in researching and solving Covid-19, can we get access to the data needed while protecting individuals rights?

Track Two: Medicine and Epidemiology

Assistive medical and research tools that can help collect, collate and be applied in the fight against Covid-19

Track Three: Informational and Coping Tools

Covid-19 has led to huge changes in the way people live, what tools can be developed to ease the effects of this?

Track Four: Open Innovation

Creative thinking is key to our eventual success against Covid-19, this track is for contributions that don’t fit into the other tracks

Prizes

Prizes for the best contributions in each track (according to the judges) will be awarded and will include tokens donated by DAIA member AI/Blockchain projects, along with potential donations from additional sponsors. However, it will be made clear to all participants that this particular hackathon isn’t mainly about prizes, it’s about leveraging our amazing technology to help save human lives.

Working Together Toward a Positive Outcome

Like most things in life, the extremely unfortunate medical crisis that currently confronts the human species can be expected to have its upsides along with its downsides. One of the few positive things about crisis situations is the potential they have to bring people together. This is the spirit in the teams at DAIA, Ocean Protocol and SingularityNET, who have decided to divert some energy from our usual pursuits to launch the CoVIDathon.

It is a rare moment when a large portion of humanity’s resources is focused on the same problem. We believe that decentralized AI, even in its current early stage of development, is an extremely valuable resource, and we would like to see it deployed as effectively as possible to get humanity beyond the COVID-19 crisis and on to its next stage of development.

Some of the tools and collaborations formed in this process will be valuable not only for combating COVID-19 but also for a variety of humanitarian, technological and scientific purposes after COVID-19 has been relegated to the role of “just one more disease basically under control.”

How can I take part?

For more information on how you can contribute please join either the telegram group, or Discord Server and preregister here

To learn more about us and inquire for memberships, please contact us at team@daia.foundation.