SafeSpot

As of June 15th, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak had 7.69M confirmed cases and caused a 428K death toll worldwide within half a year. Global efforts have shown that syndromic surveillance, physical distancing, hand hygiene, viral testing and contact tracing are the most effective tactics for our societies to succeed in the battle against such  viruses.

The company is building a user-centred COVID-19 notification platform powered by an API, including an app, wearable technology and software system to support public health and data privacy necessary for economic recovery.

We are building an AI, API-as-a-Service platform and SafeSystem to aggregate anonymized public health datasets, contract-tracing data from partners, and volunteered data to support governments, companies and the general public to make informed decisions about safety, health and returning to normality.

We will be the Google Maps of Safe: Through API integrations, Nineteen visualizations will provide algorithmically powered maps to identify verified “SafeSpot” locations.

The problem is that we need to gain control over the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and other deadly viruses to effectively contain and eradicate them.

The problem is a communicational and an operational one, impacting the entire world’s population in a time of pandemic.

We need to monitor compliance over physical distancing in a privacy respectful and interoperable way. Teach and monitor proper hand washing techniques. Monitor common symptoms. Align contact tracing and testing efforts. Share data.

Furthermore, contact tracing is a very labor intensive and privacy invasive process. The task is to contact possibly exposed individuals and assess the need to proceed with testing for the virus or the presence of antibodies. In times of pandemics, there are often shortages of qualified workers to scale the contact tracing teams, and there are alignment issues in adopting a common approach to solving this need.

From these alignment issues, we are seeing a wealth of contact tracing applications working in silos and miscommunication of results. We are seeing invasion of privacy and risks of abuse. We are seeing sloppy contact tracing. We are seeing worried individuals and workers.

Our solution is a system comprising a smart wearable device, and API-as-a-service integration platform and a set of smartphone applications including a contact tracing app that is compatible with the Google/Apple proximity tracing API and a syndromic surveillance dashboard.

The smart wearable device, a wristband, comprises sensors and a Bluetooth chip to detect hand washing, body temperature for signs of fevers and proximity to either another wristband, mobile phones or compatible smart watches. The smart wearable device is facultative and can be replaced by a compatible smartwatch that integrates an accelerometer. It is also paired with the user’s smartphone if the user has one or works as a standalone. 

The wristband keeps a registry of proximity and its duration with other compatible Bluetooth devices for the longer of 2 weeks or until the wearable can transmit its anonymized identity token to our servers and receive our instructions. It gives a nudge to the user whenever it registers a proximity alert.

Our app teaches how to proceed with a proper hand washing and, coupled with our wristband or a smart watch, it monitors the user's hand washing patterns and habits. It gamifies the process for kids. It monitors compliance for workers.

It serves the public, who anonymously use the apps and wear the wristband, it serves the contact tracing workers, who see their workload diminished and facilitated, and it serves the local, national and international health authorities and governments who see relevant information gathered into dashboards.

The target users are the children, the seniors and the workforce who must adopt proper hand washing habits. For children, it allows them to transform a burdensome action into a game which reinforces good habits. For seniors and financially poor people, it’s a cheap alternative to a smartphone or a smartwatch for contact tracing. For workers, it's a compliance monitoring device that replaces hand washing registries. For authorities, it’s a reliable source of data in terms of public hand sanitation and syndromic surveillance.

We have received significant feedback in a very short time through surveys and have conducted multiple focus groups. There were more than 500 responses to the first survey to parents. Our first product SafeKids is targeted to children ranging from 4 - 7 years of ages and from 8 - 12 in age.  Parents are concerned with fifty-two percent stating they are very or extremely concerned about their children returning to school. 

As communities around the world prepare for, detect and respond to emerging pandemics and health security threats we are providing support for safe hand washing and physical-distancing practices, providing personalized information about COVID-19 proximity and risk, preventing the spread by designating locations as safe and alerting users of the risk score of their planned outing or destination.

We are also developing a wristband for children and adults. For children, the device supports safe behavioural development, including hand washing and physical distancing, and includes temperature indicators to signal parents and caregivers that they may need to check their child’s temperature.

Our angle has been to approach the contact tracing app competitive space with our proprietary hardware that monitors hand washing and physical distancing and provide an API-as-a-service business model to allow an integration with the other “Contact tracing app” companies. 

We seek to ensure interoperability between the privacy preserving contact tracing app solutions out there. We want to break jurisdictional silos and allow contact tracing to work between countries or states. 

This solution aggregates all available public health data, data from participating contact tracing apps, volunteered data, and data from its products and services in partnership will schools, long term care centers, and other institutions, to provide an anonymized API reporting on social distancing and hand washing behaviours, as well as the presence of COVID-19. 

Our API supports decision makers with: access to true and real-time COVID-19 and behavioural data, visual geo-mapping of cases, dashboards to display trends and predict spread, tools to triage interventions, and NLP-generated recommendations on policy responses and public communications which can be automated and used to alert the public and communicate safety measures in real-time.

9-API enables AI-powered solutions in partnership with governments and public health agencies to provide holistic, shared and a unified picture of current and potential situations to support informed decision making and responses to prevent the spread of disease and to speed recovery.  19-API aggregates anonymized, open public health data, contact-tracing partner data, volunteered and proprietary data to provide a holistic, shared and unified picture of current and potential COVID-19 situations to inform decision-making, prevent the spread of COVID-19, and speed economic recovery

Decision-makers have access to true and real-time COVID-19 and behavioural data; visual geo-mapping of cases and dashboards to display trends and predict spread; tools to triage interventions; and, NLP-generated recommendations on policy responses and intelligent public alerts and communications about safety measures in real-time

35 Million in one year (Canada)

1 billion people in 5 years

Covid-19 and future pandemics are a global issue

We have already put into motion and developed a version 1 of our UK, Europe Expansion Strategy in line with the Canadian over 3 phases for the next 18 months:

● Sourced 11 Grants ready for review and planning submission

● Built an initial pipeline of 40+ potential engagements ready
for outreach (see Dashboard)
● Secured $10k in AWS Credits for product dev team extending
our runway over a 2 year period
● Secured potential hardware partnership call for product team
with Smairt Hero which went very well and we are signing an
NDA with as we speak to take discussions forward
● Secured potential hardware partnership call for product team
with Miicare about their IoT beacons (awaiting outcome)
● Initiated discussions with global enterprise 3M’s Medical
Materials & Technologies division (they also have a HQ in
Canada) about supporting our manufacturing process and
educating us on materials that come into contact with skin
or fluids (e.g. saliva, sweat, water). Also initially exploring
potential partnerships around adoption of our bands for
monitoring handwashing for front-line health workers
● Ongoing discussions with Bournemouth University about
doing joint grant bids, tapping into their research and doing
joint R & D
● Ongoing discussions with UnLtd, the leading UK grant

We are navigating new barriers to entry that have arisen due to COVID and our access to manufacturers abroad by partnering with Canadian fabrication partners.

• SafeKids product around the wrist of every child before the first bell rings; 

• SafeSystems supporting 10% of the long-term care and front line market

• $2M sales reached with the Beta Product 

• $1M in initial enterprise sales with $50M in the pipeline for 2021 

n/a

5 fulltime

5 part-time

2 consultants

We understand the need to safeguard personal data and privacy while providing immediate and intelligent solutions to consumers and organizations to respond to COVID-19 and to support relaxing lockdown restrictions. 

We are moving fast to secure a first-mover advantage. We have a reputation for speed and agility. Our team dynamics are unparalleled. Our path to market is focused, tiered and centred on TRUST.

We understand that we must provide value-added customer-experience services to support clients with an exceptional end-user experience to make our SafeSpot designation and SafeSystem integration a must-have for every customer, employee, vendor or supplier.

• B Corp Assessment complete and we are working toward our B-Corp Pending Status       

• We serve UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 - Good Health and Wellbeing, by developing AI solutions for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks.         

• We signed the Tech for Good Declaration.        

• Universities: six R&D partnership applications with

Carleton University in Ottawa (2), the University of Ottawa (2), the University of New Brunswick, and Memorial University in Newfoundland related to hand washing, gesture recognition and proximity AI/ML awareness. The applications were submitted to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada.·        

• We have delivered a PPP proposal to Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information, and have met with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to either support the initiative or expand it.·        

• We were accepted to Canada’s Digital Technologies Supercluster.

We will make money through public-private partnerships (PPPs), and enterprise sales, subscription integrations, and bolstered by COVID-19 R&D and commercialization-focused government funds and companies and ultimately launch an API-as-a-Service business model along with knowledge services.

• Businesses being listed as a certified safe-spot

• Providing API access to developers and solution providers

• Through Strategic Partners (hardware vendors)

• Government and PPP

We could make $10-50M on the low end, but given the global need for real-time, COVID-19 data and analysis, it could end upwards to $500M. 

• Funding
• Recognition
• Support
• Collaboration , partnership
• Accelerate scaling

We would like to partner with the following organizations to align with global impact institutions and their ecosystems for a collaboration, scaling, mentorship, support and knowledge sharing relationship.

Singularity University

MIT research faculty

MIT innovation community and ecosystem

United Nations

Through data visualisation, it will provide algorithmically powered maps to identify verified SafeSpot locations that will be integrated with the SafeSpot Map provided to the public through our web and mobile responsive site.

It will also be integrated with our SafeKids service provided to schools, children and parents, and our SafeSeniors service provided to the elderly, carers and care homes.
● Dashboard: It will provide them with a dashboard enabling them to see these aggregated data points at a high level that can be filtered into various views (e.g. by city, town, street)
● Data Visualised Maps: It will enable them to access customisable data visualised maps of their population at a local to national level. This will be provided as a set of heat-maps and data clusters to show key information.
● Deep Analytics & Reporting: It will also provide access to deep analytics with a focus on impact-led reporting and data extraction
● SafeKids & SafeSeniors Integration:
○ It will integrate with these two services that will act as live data sources pulling anonymized data from the bands, and apps about general compliance with social distancing and handwashing guidelines
○ It will later be extended to push recommendations to users (e.g. teachers, carers, elderly) if government rules are increased or relaxed
○ It will also be integrated later to inform the user if they have come into contact with a registered SafeSpot or not

● Predictive Intelligence: Through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning it will learn about the data to predict high-risk areas, situation and non-compliance to guidelines to make approach recommendations and take action

● For Developers: SafeSpot API will be open to external developers to access and utilize as external collaborators of Nineteen.ai to tap into its API, data sets, maps and services to support their external applications
● For Businesses: It will support them to ensure their physical locations are listed as SafeSpots by providing the data on their COVID-19 procedures. This will be provided for free with a basic listing for free with very limited information, and with a subscription fee applicable to have more information listed about how safe they are. It will enable them to embed our map across their channels to reassure the public to return to consuming
their products and services.
● Integration with Contact Tracing Apps: A valuable source of data will come from these apps and the API-as-a-Service will enable them to be integrated to benefit from a wider data pool
● Integration with IoT Devices: The platform will be available to be integrated with these devices in public places for Smart Cities purposes or within businesses (e.g. restaurants) to collect unique data sources The above approach provides a unique value proposition