Hack from Home has been organised in an aim to find technology solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, and mitigate economic and societal issues.

With Dataswift as its main sponsor, other collaborating partners include HAT-LAB, NHSX and Case Western Reserve University‘s xLab.

The development of up to 25 new applications has been planned for Hack from Home for the purpose of generating solutions to the pandemic’s challenges.

These projects will centre around the following three themes:

• Citizen science: Empowering individuals to work with government and healthcare to stop the virus faster
• Community health: Ensuring a sufficient amount of appropriate resources for communities, and helping the vulnerable
• Mass communication: Unlocking the power of personal data in order to aid mobilisation and coordination of resources

Professor Irene Ng, CEO of Dataswift, said: “Our goal is to band together to help communities, patients, and their families using what we know best – technology.

“We need to ensure that in these difficult times, opportunistic app makers aren’t hoovering up our data, and to avoid a scenario where the world ends up worse than it was before.

How to protect your business from cyber security threats during the Covid-19 crisis, according to the National Cyber Security Centre

In this exclusive Q&A, the National Cyber Security Centre advises businesses on how to protect themselves and their workforce from cyber security threats during the Covid-19 crisis. Read here

“This collective action will prove that the ethical data economy can trump the surveillance economy.”

Youngjin Yoo, professor of design & innovation at Case Western Reserve University and faculty director of xLab, added: “The fight against the pandemic is not just a medical problem – it is a behavioral problem, and a social problem.

“Our economy, our social lives, and our community are all affected by the pandemic. A multi-disciplinary, multi-industry approach to this struggle is required, and the market failure of the ethical use of personal data is one of the challenges.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrating in real time why the society desperately needs a scalable ethical technology infrastructure. This hackathon will bring bright minds together to address this complex and rapidly evolving problem.”

The sponsors of Hack at Home are actively seeking participants, and there is no limit for how many can take part.

Anyone wishing to participate can sign up here.

[emailsignup]