Hungarian startup makes its COVID-19 drive-thru testing software available free of charge and open source
Tags: Open Source, Software Development, Github, Covid 19, Coronavirus

Hungarian startup makes its COVID-19 drive-thru testing software available free of charge and open source Rollet Follow Jun 25 · 3 min read

The first official case of coronavirus in Hungary was reported in early March. A few weeks later, due to the rapid increase in the number of epidemic cases, the Hungarian government decided to partially lock down the country. The restriction halted the country’s normal operation for a month, several small businesses closed, and tens of thousands of people became unemployed. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rollet, a Hungarian startup, has embarked on the development of their software for administering in-car coronavirus testing, which is now available and free to use for any government or organization to help speed up response on a possible next wave.

The drive-thru coronavirus testing station fitted with Rollet’s technology was first launched in Budapest in April where hundreds of visitors were tested over the course of a few days. The drive-through COVID-19 testing method is not a novel concept, it was widely used in several Asian countries before the Hungarian solution, but previous approaches stuck to paper-based implementation which was slow and put people at a relatively high risk when contact is made between staff and patients in the process. The essence of the contactless solution developed by the startup is that patients arrive at the test station after online pre-registration. Data recording is also paperless and contactless, as the test station workers can identify the arriving motorists based on QR codes, and authorize visitors through the mobile application, which is now open sourced. As well as the entry check, sampling administration takes place in the app too, pairing the given patient’s QR code with the samples. This contactless method eliminates the chance of wrong inputs and human errors under stress.

“We agreed with the Rollet team at the very beginning of the project to make the end product widely available so that governments worldwide can respond immediately and appropriately to the crisis when needed. Being a Hungarian company, the size and population of our cities needed a highly efficient solution for mass testing, which forced us to create a technology solution that was simply not available before. There is still no consensus on whether the coronavirus will cause another wave of pandemics in the fall, but in any case, our system offers a very fast and effective solution for identifying COVID-19 patients. ” — said Andy Zhang, Founder and CEO of Rollet

The project, codenamed “NOÉ”, is free to use and thanks to the MIT license, It can be freely adapted by both private companies and government organizations, released under the MIT licence. Rollet NOÉ is available at Github.com/rollethu/noe. According to the startup, the code can be used to help start a drive-thru test station within a few days, as the program is suitable for receiving and sampling thousands of guests without additional development. The software can not only be used for coronavirus testing, but also for the rapid sampling of all viruses where a vehicle provides a suitable containment environment for sampling and screening.

Rollet launched its contactless drive-through payment service in Hungary in 2017, and since then, cashless, in-car payment methods have been made available to motorists in dozens of locations, including parking lots, office buildings, industrial areas, and business parks. In 2020, The Next Web chose Rollet as one of the best Hungarian startup innovations in Europe, and last year the audience of the Vienna Property Forum chose Rollet as “CEE’s Best Emerging Startup”.