MTA Demo Day, Maps in light of Pandemic, Call for Innovation
By: Jessica Salomon
Tags: Ethereum, Covid 19 Crisis, Maps, Featured, Blockchain

The FOAM team wishes everyone health and wellness during these uncertain times. Nevertheless, the hard-driving FOAM team is working vigorously towards Proof of Location and business goals from our respective homes.

The unfolding pandemic further highlights the FOAM Mission statement — to enable crowd-sourced mapping and decentralized location tools — as the world turns to reliable information sharing in order to sustain lives and operations. Last month, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo claimed Beijing’s “inadequate information sharing” caused US handling of situation to be “behind in the curve”. As governments wrestle one another for info, we push harder and faster to develop consensus driven and decentralized information sharing tools that are available to all.

We hosted a community call on Thursday April 16 with guest demos from FOAM Gitcoin hackathon winners. We are excited to continue to open discussion around how innovative products built on FOAM products can serve the world’s new and coming needs. Check out the call here.

FOAM was honored to participate in the MTA Signaling Challenge Virtual Demo Day on April 2nd. FOAM and 16 other technological leaders presented plans to MTA officials to modernize New York City’s 115-year old subway signaling system. NYC subway officials recognize the heightened priority of subway innovation given the impacts of COVID-19. MTA Chief innovation officer describes “This public health crisis is a formidable challenge and we sincerely appreciate the hard work of Transit Innovation Partnership in helping MTA build the most innovative solutions on the market.” Foamspace was thrilled for an opportunity to demonstrate the proof of location technology to a wide array of the MTA’s officials and engineers.

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We have seen a jump in proprietary maps in recent weeks. Effective map products of all kinds are essential to navigating the spread of this pandemic. An interesting example of proprietary map is that of Baidu in China.

Baidu and Baidu Maps (the top search engine in China) has launched a dedicated page to demonstrate locations of confirmed COVID-19 cases. The page (shown below) shows locations between the user and the nearest confirmed infection. The product also displays recent locations visited by the latter.

While the Baidu map’s wide use of individual data is controversial the product highlights how map products can be helpful in managing the spread of the virus. Maybe a consensus-driven product using voluntary and altruistic information around tested positive individuals’ info is possible. China claims to have managed the crisis now and workers are back to work. How helpful is the Baidu map product in managing the spread of Covid? What other types of map products could be relevant?

In early March, Emergency Medical doctors took COVID-19 information sharing into their own hands by forming a community verified map that displayed updates of confirmed and suspicious cases. The altruistic initiative was largely inspired by a Facebook group of 21,000 contributing EM physician’s desire for effective industry collaboration. Similar to the FOAM map, the map depended upon independent contributors (in this case EM physicians) to post accurate points verifiable by consensus.

EM Physicians were asked to provide Hospital level info to support each Covid (point) submission. This is information which ER doctors have access through their hospital databases and creates a consensus mechanism for the map that also enhances the specificity and accuracy of each point.

The impetus behind the ER curated COVID-19 map reflects the FOAM mission statement: a community operation enabling transparent information flow. Information around infection rates — where and when — are critical for policymakers and civilians alike. FOAM Map team is empowered to see the rise of similar products serving the social good.

These Viral Coronavirus Cellphone Maps Send A Powerful Message: But Here’s The Problem.

The Forbes article raises concerns over the increase in cellphone data tracking. “There is now increasing coverage of the use of smartphones to track population movements as the behavioral changes required to fight the coronavirus pandemic take hold.”

TECTONIX/TWITTER

How Apple and Google are tackling their covid privacy problem.

MIT Technology Review published an opinion on Google and Apple’s efforts to create products that track the COVID-19 cases and issues of privacy and trust associated with it.

Covid 19 : People : : GPS Disruption : Technology.

There are lessons to be learned from Covid-19 and GPS Disruption @GPSBackup writes: “Both are Complex, difficult to understand, cascade through networks and systems — Severe economic damage — detection systems available, but not purchased and ready.”

FOAM Map is empowered to further serve the public good. Help us create effective map and information sharing products so the world can better deal with the crisis at hand. The FOAM Grants program is open to a wide range of ideas.

Example Projects :

Color coding scheme for POI’s that reflect business opening hours

Enhanced display of hospital/healthcare wait times

Visual map viewer of infection rates/spread

Apply for a Foam Grant or start by scheduling a brainstorming session.

In the meantime, stay well and safe.