Crowdsourcing: The Elixir to Revive the World from COVID-19

By Rudrani Ghosh

Crowdsourcing holds the promise to promote “participatory networking” in healthcare and halt the rapid speed of corona virus.

“Corona virus needs healthcare while it is hurting healthcare” — this is how Dr. Vivek Desai, the Managing Director of Hosmac, explains the current situation of the pandemic. The appetence for data is desperate as the scholastic and scientific research can’t counter the crisis without evidence. This condition is almost synonymous to “fly a plane when you are building it.”

COVID-19 is not the first pandemic that the world is trying to put up with, but it is definitely the one during which digital platforms play an important role in connecting and collaborating with the people around the globe to develop ideas and inputs for combating the virus.

The eagerness to know about the unknown has always motivated people. In a similar way, the thirst to know about the teeny virus is also desperate. Thus, in this context, crowdsourcing ideas and innovations needs a multi-sectorial approach— from companies, institutions, academicians, experts and citizens— to tackle the spread of the pandemic is mere necessity.

Even the Indian government is reaching out to experts and public for solutions in order to tackle the situation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the citizens and entrepreneurs to work in synergy to curb the outbreak. “A lot of people have been sharing technology-driven solution to combat COVID-19. I would urge them to share them on the Government citizen engagement platform MyGov.in,” he stated.

The Crowd: An Innovation Partner

Over the past decade companies have interacted with crowds on various creative and innovative decisions in diverse domains such as engineering, operations research, predictive analytics, software development, marketing, genomics among others. To find answer to the most “vexing innovation” and research questions, crowds have always become a partner of choice. For instance, to map the structure of AIDS-related virus that had baffled academicians and scientists for more than 15 years, crowds of external contributors helped the scholars of the University of Washington to derive a success story.

Technology: The Magician in Times of Social Distancing

In today’s global pandemic, thanks to technological advancements, public and private institutions, are trying to come together under one spectrum of the library in order to collate lifesaving information and share best practices. The Coronavirus Tech Handbook deserves special mention, which evolved rapidly as the crowdsourced resource to provide users with improved searchability of crucial data relating to COVID-19.

Despite lockdown and its re-extensions, skills and expertise of the crowd can be utilized to address the situation. In the month of March, a researcher from Harvard University set up a “national database” for the scientists. It helped them to register their expertise and prowess with the feeling of being connected to each other from different domains in order to collaborate and share ideas to fight against the pandemic.

With the rapid spread of this virus there was a shortage in many of the essential medical supplies and equipment, especially respiratory masks. In March 2020, a small group from Chile created a digital design of a 3D printable mask made from a copper-infused thermoplastic. They uploaded the design file for this mask on a website so that anyone in the world who has access to a 3D printer, and this particular type of thermoplastic could download the design and print out this mask for free.

NASA creates a Platform

Even NASA has created a crowdsourcing platform called NASA @ WORK where the scientists and employees can work together and come up with ideas and innovative solutions to combat the virus. NASA joined hands and extended their contribution to America.

NASA, in collaboration with the White House and other governmental agencies, identified three significant areas where it can make a relevant difference. Designing Personal Protective Equipment and ventilators, as well as monitoring COVID-19 cases through supercomputers, artificial intelligence and data analytic to forecast areas that will be affected by the virus.

And within 37 days, the engineers of NASA tailored a high-pressure ventilator prototype called VITAL to cater to the needs of the COVID patients.

The Magic Bullet

When the entire world is skeptical and anxious of tackling the outbreak of COVID-19, crowdsourcing innovations can act as a magic bullet and can augment the effectiveness of the health-related surveillance. According to the robust study titled “Why we need Crowdsourced data in Infectious disease surveillance”, it was found out that there are many advantages of crowdsourced ideas.

First, crowdsourcing tools can spatially augment information in places where surveillance sites do not cover.

Second, it presents a real picture of the disease by capturing the data of the patients and it is essential as COVID-19 spread globally at a much increasingly higher rate than many diseases.

Third, another important aspect of crowdsourcing is that the direct engagement with the audience augments the level of awareness among the crowd and enable them to get involved in their own health.

Lastly, through crowdsourcing, we are able to understand the dynamics of COVID-19 which are usually not accessible through traditional data, such as contact pattern and different social and environmental aspects.

Significant Potential for Healthcare Industry

Mr. Joy Chakroborty, COO of P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Chairman of CII– Western Region Taskforce on Healthcare, believes that since COVID-19 is very new for the entire world, managing this should involve innovation through designing effective strategies for healthcare delivery and management.

Mr. Chakroborty contends that we need to recognize the major challenges faced by the civic authority to contain the spread of the infection. “Such a situation demands to have an innovative system and process in place. Thus, rather than going conventional, it is best to switch over to crowdsourced ideas and creativity. The innovators and private hospitals should be symbiotic in nature to get an exponential result out of this synergy,” he stresses.

Lets Fight Together

Varun Sheth, CEO of Ketto, asserts, “Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding innovation can combat COVID-19. If people are working together on a common problem– which could be raising money for migrant workers or building vaccines for COVID-19, crowdsourcing is a great way to find solution much faster and in a collaborative manner.”

According to Dr. Desai, “With the regular crowdsourcing campaign, it is also important to find a platform that crowdfund effort for low-income people to nimbly support them. Crowdfunding should be given to poor patients for the treatment who needs long term ventilatory life support and also for rehabilitation purposes.” However, he also points out, “With a steep cut in income level, the traditional crowd which support such activities might find it difficult to contribute.”

To end with Mr. Sheth’s words, “A great way to devise crowdsourcing and crowdfunding ideas would be if we are able to create a general framework in terms of what we want to achieve and then put it out to the larger universe. Via this framework, people can start sharing their ideas towards the problem to engage and figure out the solution collaboratively.”