The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge is looking for novel analytic approaches that use COVID-19 Symptom Survey data to enable earlier detection and improved situational awareness of the outbreak.
Challenge participants will leverage aggregated data from the COVID-19 Symptom Surveys conducted by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland, in partnership with Facebook. Approaches can integrate publicly available datasets to validate and extend the predictive utility of symptom data and should assess the impact of the integration of symptom data on identifying inflection points in state, local, or regional COVID outbreaks, as well guiding individual and policy decision-making.
These are the largest and most detailed surveys ever conducted during a public health emergency, with over 25M responses recorded to date, across 200+ countries and territories and 55+ languages. Challenge partners look forward to seeing participants’ proposed approaches leveraging this data, as well as welcome feedback on the data’s usefulness in modeling efforts.
“Symptom survey data has the potential to point both policy makers and the general public to one of the earliest indicators of the virus,” said Farzad Mostashari, CEO of Aledade and Chair of the Challenge. “We think this challenge is an amazing opportunity for members of the data analytics and visualization communities to make use of syndromic data to develop solutions that can support the national COVID-19 response.”
How the Challenge Works:
In Phase I, innovators submit a white paper (“digital poster”) summarizing the approach, methods, analysis, findings, relevant figures and graphs of their analytic approach using COVID-19 Symptom Survey public data (see challenge submission criteria for more). Judges will evaluate the entries based on Validity, Scientific Rigor, Impact, and User Experience and award five semi-finalists $5,000 each. Semi-finalists will present their analytic approaches to a judging panel and three semi-finalists will be selected to advance to Phase II. The semi-finalists will develop a prototype (simulation or visualization) using their analytic approach and present their prototype at a virtual unveiling event. Judges will select a grand prize winner and the runner up (2nd place). The grand prize winner will be awarded $50,000 and the runner up will be awarded $25,000. The winning analytic design will be featured on the Facebook Data for Good website and the winning team will have the opportunity to participate in a discussion forum with representatives from public health agencies.
Phase I applications for the challenge are due Tuesday, September 29th 2020 11:59:59 PM ET.
Learn more about the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge here: https://bit.ly/symptomdata