Anteviral

Inspiration

Disinformation and false health advice on COVID-19 continues to circulate on social media, with potentially harmful consequences on our relationships, on social cohesion and our trust in public institutions. From individuals with no medical experience urging their friends and family to ingurgitate dangerous drugs, to Trump urging the American public to inject disinfectant into their systems, to false rumors regarding the dangerousness and provenance of the virus, citizens constantly drink from a firehose of information that is negatively impacting public health and social cohesion.

What it does

We have created an algorithmic web monitoring application that leverages data science to assist both individuals and media organizations capture and analyze extremely large volumes of information being shared online, to put an end to rumors, conspiracy theories and potentially harmful speculation before they do any damage. Concretely, our platform automatically tracks, measures and aggregates both articles and statements shared online to identify fake news. It then pushes this information to partner organizations in the media for fact-checking and monitors its spread and online footprint to help these organizations and the general public focus on what matters.

How we built it

EUvsVirus was the perfect opportunity to bring together a strong and diverse team with complementary skills to work towards eradicating fake news. Anteviral was built but data scientists, software engineers and entrepreneurs with the required skills to build the platform from start to finish. The French MVP is now live and we are pulling together a team of multilingual factcheckers to expand to the rest of the European Union during the upcoming days. By the end of the process, our platform will be live in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German and Spanish.

Please visit: www.anteviral.com

Challenges we ran into

Gathering customer feedback in such a short space of time was challenging but we have managed to speak to 26 journalists, 22 of which (85%) validated our platform and confirmed they were willing to use it. Creating an online presence over a single weekend was challenging as well, but we have multiple followers online and 106 individuals have already signed up to our newsletter. Technically, our platform required a lot of work but was well-managed from start to finish.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud that our algorithms work and that we have managed to tie both our data-driven backend development to a sleek and intuitive front-end design. Our platform works perfectly, which wasn’t a given when we began the project. Additionally, we are pleased to have gathered feedback that have enabled us to improve. Having tested the MVP, we want to take this project one step further and get Anteviral into the hands of media organizations and the general public.

What we learned

We have learned that it is possible to assemble a strong team to tackle important societal issues, build a sophisticated MVP and gather feedback in a very short amount of time. Our team has been under a lot of stress but it has been worth it. Such a sprint has enabled us to produce what would normally take us numerous months to draft, design, build and market. We have learned a new way of working and we feel empowered to take our platform to the next level to put an end to rumors, conspiracy theories and potentially harmful speculation before they do any damage.

What's next for Anteviral

We aim to continue gathering feedback to improve our platform before we expand to the rest of the European Union. It is also key that we secure financing, develop strategic partnerships and convert our first leads to accelerate the platform’s deployment and impact. We intend to sign 10 partnerships during the COVID crisis and target a 20% monthly growth rate to become profitable in two months’ time, and you can help us achieve these targets.

Please visit: www.anteviral.com and subscribe to our newsletter!