LAPRAS

Who we are

We are the Learning and Predicting from Pandemic Simulations team, or LAPRAS. Our team consists of six highly motivated physics students with a passion for solving complex problems and developing innovative solutions.

What motivated us to create LAPRAS

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on people all over the world, with drastic changes to their living conditions and lifestyles. To tackle the many challenges which have arisen, great efforts have been made to find effective solutions which encompass the key principles of humanity as well as the heights of technological developments. Information, and the way it is handled and distributed, has played and will continue to play a key role within these solutions: now more than ever, there is a strong need for clear ideas, facts and reliable data, all of which need to be made accessible to the general public.

We realised that while the models which are used to study the spread of the pandemic are often mentioned in news articles or statements from government entities, their features are rarely discussed in detail, perhaps to avoid confusing members of the general public. However, as these models have strongly influenced the policies adopted by governments around the world, it is evident that the information they hold is of vital importance. Therefore, we decided to create a platform which would help the users to visualise models for the spread of a pandemic.

Our objectives and key values

Above all, we aim to present information in a clear way, so that individuals from any background can gain a greater understanding of a model for the spread of a pandemic. We want to create a user friendly experience that is defined by the user's choices; they can select what type of environment to look at and adopt a range of possible strategies which could include complete lockdown or social distancing, in response to the pandemic, as well as other features of the simulation. Our hope is that this will raise awareness of the effectiveness of different strategies, increasing confidence in these models.

Business plan and risk assessment

We believe that LAPRAS can provide a service which will benefit institutions and businesses alongside individuals, as an increased understanding of the pandemic and of the measures imposed would correspond to greater confidence in society's capacity to respond to the current crisis. This would certainly aid government entities as they seek to avoid widespread panic and confusion. This would in turn have a stabilising effect on the economy, leading to benefits for many business.

We therefore expect that similar organisations would be interested in backing our project and support us as we expand the range of services that our platform offers. Likewise, we hope that schools and universities would see our platform as a useful tool for the purpose of education.

As part of an extension to our existing project, we plan to incorporate simulations that use real data that has been collected thus far by authoritative sources: the data would already be of public domain and so there would be no risk as far as the privacy of individuals is concerned. Additionally, to ensure the accuracy of our information, we would initiate discussions with experts in epidemiology and ethics.

What we've achieved during the EUvsVirus Hackathon

Over the course of the EUvsVirus Hackathon, we have created the framework for our platform; our first simulations, which include parameters such as the number of households in our model environment as well as others which quantify the susceptibility of individuals to the virus, have been successfully completed. The key advantage of our current foundation is that will allow us to add many other features in a straightforward manner, making it possible to explore a wide variety of scenarios.

As we have created our platform from scratch during the Hackathon, there is still plenty of room for improvement: we have already developed plans to account for this. For example, one of our immediate short term goals after the end of the end of the Hackathon is to enhance our graphics so that the user has more control over the simulations.

The future of LAPRAS

As touched on above, we have extensive plans for the future of LAPRAS. These range from continuing to develop and enhance the platform to opening the project to individuals with knowledge and expertise in the field of epidemiology, in order to ensure that our project is fully functional and accurate.

Additionally, we believe that the groundwork that has been laid during this Hackathon would allow us to expand our objectives and allow us to model a wide selection of phenomena in addition to pandemics, while preserving our key goals of providing clear information to the public.