WARP - Virus Visualisation and Agile Response Platform

Inspiration

Never in recent history has an epidemic limited the lives of so many people around the globe, to the extent that we are seeing in the current crisis. And in the history of mankind there has never been an epidemic that has generated so much data as the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has overwhelmed all of us, our healthcare systems, the economy and also the public institutions responsible for finding solutions. We believe in the power of data, technology and collaboration to tackle the greatest challenges. Now is the time to put our beliefs into action.

What it does

Our web app helps decision makers to take impactful decisions by providing a single platform and combining multiple data types and sources. Swiss decision makers at all levels can visualise the same agreed sets of data in a comprehensive manner and thus take informed and transparent decisions to communicate with each other using a common understanding of the situation. This platform aims to be set up in such a way that it can be reused for other crisis situations that may arise in the future, thus saving valuable time and lives.

How we built it

First Idea:
An explorative web based dashboard to visualize effects of Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on public health and the economy. Uses Google spreadsheets as a collaborative database.

• Languages: Javascript, Python
• APIs: Google Docs API
• Hardware: Any device with a web browser, runs from a .html file
• Libraries: Google Charts
• UI Kits: Bootstrap Material Design, Query Select2
• Contributors: Roman Hatz: Application Design and Chart visualization / Tobias Person: Data modelling and processing / Jonathan Tambe Ebot: Design and UX
  Second Idea: The solution is a dashboard built in Tableau Public, which is a free software for data visualisation and analytics. The data was saved in Google Sheets on a Google Drive, which we connected to Tableau. The dashboard is updated dynamically based on the input data and scalable to include further data sources and views in later extensions.

Challenges we ran into

• Framing of such a complex problem, involving so many different stakeholders, and choosing our target audience.
• Definition and assignment of tasks within the team, although it went very smoothly in the end ;-)
• In some cases, we learned to use new tools, as well as new ways to collaborate and share.
• We collected public health and economic data to have a broad picture of the situation. After many fruitful discussions and based on our collective understanding, we selected the most critical indicators to provide an overview of the situation and illustrate the capabilities of our solution.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• We created our own team with very diverse skills and all had a memorable hackathon experience!
• Contacted all the members of Swiss parliament, on both federal and cantonal levels, who were present in the hackathon. Their replies informed many of our early decisions on the tool functionalities.
• We were contacted by advisors of the Federal Councillors Alain Berset and Guy Parmelin, who showed interest in our project.

What we learned

• Talking to the stakeholders to understand their needs and validate the usefulness of the tool should be done as early on as possible.
• Optimizing task allocation according to people skills.
• Selecting the right metrics.
• Finding all possible data, selection of useful ones, merge them and fast implementation in visualization tools (Tableau)
• Careful selection of reliable sources

What's next for WARP - Virus Visualisation and Agile Response Platform

• Validate prototype and selection of KPIs with experts and user group
• Validate existing data and integrate further and unconventional data
• Decide dashboard delivery platform (Tableau vs. Web application)
• Automation of the data collection
• Additional visualisation capabilities (ex.: Heatmap) and view
• Integrating modelling and forecasting functionalities for testing different intervention scenarios
• Identify expertise gaps (e.g. social media communication, modeling capabilities)
• Form follow up team including stakeholders representatives
• Publish v1.0!
• See each other in person when it will be possible :)

Built With

• bootstrap
• google-chart
• google.api
• javascript
• jquery
• phython
• tableau