Open Covid FAQ
OPEN COVID: Collective Intelligence and Action for COVID-19
1. What is OPEN COVID?
A global, open, collective, community, society-wide response to COVID-19, drawing on collective intelligence and action.
Per the New York Times Editorial Board, on March 17, 2020:
Stop Saying That Everything Is Under Control. It Isn’t. Tackling the pandemic will require a new, collective way of thinking about public health and society as a whole.
2. Why is it needed, given the extensive work on COVID-19?
Several reasons:
3. Who is OPEN COVID meant for?
OPEN COVID is for everyone interested in open approaches to learning, research, and action – citizens, parents, researchers, citizen scientists, artists, kids. Offerings are geared toward each segment.
4. Who is behind OPEN COVID?
Collaborators include CRI-Paris, and its community, and the Open Source Pharma Foundation (Bangalore/Paris/New York), and movement. Both communities have been dedicated for years to open scientific research and education, with a focus on infectious disease. Others are welcome.
5. What are the short-term projects of OPEN COVID?
Within the next days, we will commence or complete the following:
6. What are the medium to long term goals (6 months plus) of OPEN COVID?
To create an alternative infrastructure and incentive set for learning and discovery – collective vision for discovery. To empower communities and combat social isolation. To share practices, not just pathogens, across borders. To help reduce the toll of COVID-19. To improve global health, and have us be ready for the next pandemic.
7. Where can I find it?
Draft site at http://opencovid.care/
Appendix
Selected collaborators to date:
A global, open, collective, community, society-wide response to COVID-19, drawing on collective intelligence and action.
Per the New York Times Editorial Board, on March 17, 2020:
Stop Saying That Everything Is Under Control. It Isn’t. Tackling the pandemic will require a new, collective way of thinking about public health and society as a whole.
2. Why is it needed, given the extensive work on COVID-19?
Several reasons:
- While wonderful, most COVID-19 work is private and separate. Research takes place in individual labs. Practices do not fully permeate borders. In that sense, it is business as usual. We need a new approach. The power of an open, collective, planetary approach, harnessing the global mind and communities of citizens and researchers, for collective intelligence and action, has not been fully tapped. And yet, science - and the public health - are built on sharing.
- An open approach is sorely needed in places untouched by conventional approaches, e.g. areas of limited market potential. And even in heavily resourced areas, an open approach can at times outcompete, or at least add value.
- There exists massive untapped human potential, with many adults and children at home, with extra time, and a desire to contribute.
- To boost morale, and provide outlets.
- To learn.
3. Who is OPEN COVID meant for?
OPEN COVID is for everyone interested in open approaches to learning, research, and action – citizens, parents, researchers, citizen scientists, artists, kids. Offerings are geared toward each segment.
4. Who is behind OPEN COVID?
Collaborators include CRI-Paris, and its community, and the Open Source Pharma Foundation (Bangalore/Paris/New York), and movement. Both communities have been dedicated for years to open scientific research and education, with a focus on infectious disease. Others are welcome.
5. What are the short-term projects of OPEN COVID?
Within the next days, we will commence or complete the following:
- Map: A crowdsourced mapping of who is doing what work, globally, in the Covid space, whether via open or closed, or via public or commercial approaches. Tags for themes, geography, etc. This will help identify needs and opportunities, and avoid duplication.
- Middle Ground: A Stack Overflow for Covid, with questions and answers posed by the general community, and expert participation and moderation. This will constitute a sort of a middle ground, between internal expert discussions and the free-for-all of social media.
- Mood: Give people a chance to contribute and help, and thus also a way to combat feelings of helplessness and isolation. A platform for learning in the age of Covid, teaching in the age of Covid.
- MOOR: Massive Open Online Research. Drawing on public data sets, and from data transmitted by the people with or tested for Covid-19, who are largely at home, not in hospitals.
6. What are the medium to long term goals (6 months plus) of OPEN COVID?
To create an alternative infrastructure and incentive set for learning and discovery – collective vision for discovery. To empower communities and combat social isolation. To share practices, not just pathogens, across borders. To help reduce the toll of COVID-19. To improve global health, and have us be ready for the next pandemic.
7. Where can I find it?
Draft site at http://opencovid.care/
Appendix
Selected collaborators to date:
- Samir Brahmachari, PhD. Former Director General, CSI (national laboratory system of India); Chief mentor, Open Source Drug Discovery
- Keith Elliston, PhD. Chief Informatics Officer, Open Source Pharma Foundation; ex head of bioinformatics, Merck
- Claudie Haigneré, CEO, France Telecom; former minister; former astronaut, European Space Agency
- Ariel Lindner, PhD. Co-founder, CRI-Paris; INSERM
- Jaykumar Menon, JD, MIA, international human rights lawyer/scholar/social entrepreneur, Harvard; Co-founder, Open Source Pharma Foundation
- Francois Taddei, PhD. Co-founder, CRI- Paris; INSERM
