As the world entered lockdown, Columbia University's HITLAB was uniquely positioned to help catalyze innovation in the space of detecting and recognizing the disease by crowd-sourcing innovative ideas to manage the spread of COVID-19.

Over the first few months of 2020, we designed an accelerator program to rapidly test smartphone-based solutions to recognize and detect COVID-19. Designed in partnership with Columbia University's Health Innovation and Technology Lab.

Credits

Scope

As we wanted to lower the bar to entry for innovators with engaging solutions to have their ideas judged, we created a staggered innovation process that began with a simple, tweet-sized application. Eligible entrants were then asked for more.