To keep discussing how the technology could lead to an overall transformation in Eurasia, StrategEast launched a series of online panels StrategEast Live.
The inaugural one – “Technology as a remedy” discussed the IT solutions to combat COVID-19 crisis. Dr. Gregory Asmolov, King’s College London, moderated the discussion and offered brief opening remarks.
The panelists, who represented the global IT industry, government institutions, scientific and analytical community, agreed that it is technology that helps to fight Covid-19 on a global scale and with greatest transparency.
Dr. Tomicah Tillemann, Digital impact and governance initiative director at New America Foundation has formulated the impossibility of finding a local solution to this global problem: “To defeat the virus anywhere, we must defeat it everywhere.” According to Dr. Tilleman, “it is the cross-border solutions that are most perspective today, solutions that can be successfully transferred from one country to another.”
Heiko Sundermann, EPAM VP, Head of Digital Engagement practice, talked about one such solution, the COVID-19 RESISTANCE application. This is an open-source application, which allows tracking the spread of the virus using Bluetooth technology. According to Mr. Sundermann, open source frameworks are key in preserving the privacy of users’ personal data.
Omri Segev Moyal, CEO at cybersecurity company Profero, which implemented security control for the anti-COVID-19 application Hamagen by Israeli Ministry of Health, called this project a “Counter-Strike” by civil society. In fact, the development of this project by volunteers within an open source framework prevented from the transfer of all data on every Israeli citizen’s movement to security services. The application, already installed by 1.5 million citizens of the country, stores all the information on a user’s phone, and not on the central server. And it will be automatically destroyed after at a predetermined time.
“In fact, as a result of quarantine, the whole world is now in a startup mode,” said Mariam Lashkhi, Deputy Chairperson Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA). In turn, Mr. Moyal suggested that even in times of crisis, we need to “remain capitalists”, striving to create as many various solutions as possible in each country so that the best technological solutions to combat Covid-19 would win.
