Ontario government to invest $2.5 million in contact tracing technology to combat COVID-19

The Ontario government recently announced a $2.5 million investment into Facedrive Inc. to support the development and deployment of the contact tracing system TraceSCAN.

The purpose of this project is to develop an artificial intelligence alert system for COVID-19 based on contact tracing and health monitoring using Bluetooth-enabled wearable technology and mobile app. The University of Waterloo has partnered with Facedrive Inc. to conduct research/development in areas such as AI-based models to better predict outbreak patterns of COVID-19 and any subsequent pandemics. 

Currently, a team of engineering students lead by MME professors William Melek and Patricia Nieva are actively working on an app using algorithms to effectively manage groups within a commmunity using Bluetooth data as part of the TraceSCAN project. 

Ultimately, the hope is that this research will lead to the development of a nation-wide health monitoring system that will help reduce the costs of public health systems by supporting proactive protocols.  Read more about the investment and TraceSCAN

Image from https://facedrive.com/