Innovations during the COVID 19 Pandemic
The entire world is witnessing the impacts of the novel COVID – 19 and it is quite uncertain on how long the COVID pandemic will last and continue to impact the world. The way of life has certainly changed. Most organizations, educational institutions have had to change the way they function.
However, as Einstein once said ‘In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.’ Several organizations, individuals and volunteers across the country started responding at various levels and capacities. Innovators from nooks and corners of the country started working on different themes from keeping the public informed about credible information to developing new solutions to tackle the pandemic. Likewise, NAXA being a technology firm that has always prioritized developing technological solutions to local challenges and problems, started initiatives of different kinds, some on its own while others in partnerships with different organizations during the pandemic.
Following are the three major works that we initiated during the COVID-19 lockdown in the country.
Hamro Swasthya App and COVID-19 Web DashboardHamroSwasthyaApp , Covid-19 Data Portal https://covid19.mohp.gov.np/
With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic effects in Nepal, preparations of various aspects were required. Besides the arrangements of medical facilities, testing laboratories, quarantine centers and medical equipment for the first responders, information generation and collection was one of the immediate needs. Reliable information on the outbreak in Nepal had to be disseminated from official sources in the provinces and the public also sought timely, reliable information from the government.
With the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) mostly occupied in responding to needs of medical facilities and personnel across the country, it was realized that IT experts and volunteers could play their parts in developing innovative technological solutions. Thus, when the lockdown started in Nepal, NAXA together with a group of organizations (SOCH Nepal, Code for Core Innovations, Progressive Engineering Association Nepal (PEAN) jointly approached the MoHP to develop the digital solutions to help the government to inform the general public with accurate information on COVID-19 news and statistics in Nepal and in the world.
On March 29, 2019, 5 days after the lockdown started in Nepal, the MoHP launched a COVID-19 response-dedicated digital platform of web portal and mobile application, Hamro Swasthya.
The developed mobile app has become an important medium for the first hand information dissemination from the MoHP during COVID 19 crisis. Likewise, the developed system has also become an important tool allowing the public to self assess their health status from the comfort of their residence. The importance and effectiveness of the system have also been validated by the fact that based on the data received in the system, the Ministry conducts follow-ups with the people having similar symptoms (red zone) of COVID-19 within a day.
Currently the technical teams from SOCH Nepal and Code for Core Innovations are leading the technology support. They are based in the Ministry and have been regularly providing the technical support.
The app has been downloaded by more than 3 hundred thousand users and has more than 4 millions of web portal viewers as of December 25th, 2020.
National Innovation Digital Networkhttps://innovationnepal.nast.gov.np/
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, innovators from different sectors with the intention to support the government in containing the virus started their innovations. Several volunteers and entities across the country started responding at various levels and capacities.
Despite the willingness to support, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) and National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) were only informed about a handful of these initiatives as there wasn’t any mechanism to track and record details of these initiatives. The MoEST formed the Technology Development and Innovation group to address this issue and be informed about all innovations during the pandemic in the country. NAXA was a key member of this group formed by the Ministry.
The team at NAXA driven by its motto “Location matters”, proposed an idea of mapping all these innovations happening around the country to our partner Robotics Association of Nepal (RAN). We discussed developing a digital system to track who is doing what and where and understand the current stage of their innovations. The Ministry approved the development of the National Innovation Digital Network (NIDN) to bring together all innovators of the country into a common digital platform, provide them an opportunity to share about their innovative initiations, their challenges and provide them an interface to seek support needed to scale up their innovations.
NIDN now acts as a central hub to keep track and record all the initiatives which are in different stages of implementation by an individual, group of individuals, communities, private sectors, non-profits from all over Nepal and also to provide support to such initiatives. The Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) owns the system and NAXA, RAN are currently working as technical partners. As of January 2021, 32 innovators with their 35 innovations have shared the details of their work in the platform. We have plans to make the platform more resourceful by developing more useful features for the innovators while also massively expanding the reach of the platform to all over the country.
The 1st phase of development was supported by the Data for Development Program, The Asia Foundation.
High-Resolution Aerial Mapping of dense Urban Clusters in Urban Municipalities of Nepal
During the Covid-19 lockdown, when the airspace was mostly empty because of fewer numbers of planes flying around, the research and innovation team at NAXA and Nepal Flying labs came up with an idea to utilize this time period as an opportunity to fly drones over the free airspace and capture high resolution data of entire Kathmandu Valley. The idea was discussed with drone enthusiasts across the country. Some of the leading academia and private institutions were also thinking in the same direction and hence a consortium was formed. Under the leadership of Kathmandu University and ICIMOD, private geospatial service provider companies like Airlift, Pathway, DroNepal and some independent development experts came together and agreed to voluntarily contribute in this initiative to map.
The project started with mapping the Changunarayan Municipality, one of the rapidly urbanizing Municipality in Kathmandu Valley. This mapping was done so as to utilize the maps later to develop accurate municipal geodatabase which will help municipalities make well planned decisions regarding development projects planning. Urban mapping is also being done in other places of Nepal like Hetauda Sub Metropolitan City and Thimi Municipality.
Mapping Remote Nepal Campaign
NAXA began #MappingRemoteNepal Campaign during the lockdown that was resulted by the pandemic. With remote training on OpenStreetMap (OSM) and digitizing geographic features over satellite images, this campaign is one of the most critical initiatives that NAXA undertook during such adverse times. This campaign aims at mapping the rural and disaster prone locations of the country.
The entire Bajhang and Bajura Districts were remotely mapped in the OSM as a part of the Trails and Infrastructure Mapping Project in Bajhang and Bajura. Similarly, the disaster prone areas of Lamki Chuha Municipality in Kailali District were also mapped online by engaging volunteers and enthusiastic mappers from different parts of the country.
NAXA partnered with the YouthMappers Chapter in Nepal and the Geomatics Engineering Society (GES) to organize a month-long virtual mapathon campaign to map road networks, building footprints, forest areas, water bodies and other features that are visible on satellite imagery of Bajhang and Bajura Districts. Likewise, NAXA together with Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction (IHRR) also organized a Mapathon event to celebrate OSM Geography Awareness Week 2020 and mapped the flood prone communities of Lamki Chuha Municipality located at the southern belt of Nepal.
The geographic data visualized through maps can be vital to support and empower communities, organizations, governments and humanitarian agencies to make decisions in multiple sectors such as environmental, socio economical and in disaster and crisis management. Most rural parts of the world remain isolated, insufficiently mapped and are often vulnerable to the disaster impacts due to inadequate adaptive and resilience capacity. Mapping these isolated and vulnerable locations is one of the first initiatives to help communities provide the data they require to respond to crisis events. Mapping in OSM has proven to be critical in addressing developmental and humanitarian needs and in disaster management as geospatial data mapped and crowdsourced in OSM are open and freely available to all.
As anyone can contribute to mapping in OSM, NAXA conducted a remote mapping campaign, not only with an aim to map the vulnerable areas in Nepal but also to increase mapping volunteers and spread awareness on the significance of mapping in OSM at a larger scale. The virtual mapathon campaign was also to bring together mappers from across the country to be a part of the growing OSM community in Nepal and contribute at individual level to map the most vulnerable communities. As a result, the mapathon campaign contributed in increasing the spatial literacy among the mapping volunteers, better understanding of the geospatial data through training, discussions and the valuable talks provided by the world renowned mapping experts. Similarly, incentives in the form of certificates of contribution to all mappers and gift hampers to the contributors with the highest edits were provided which in turn developed the sense of healthy competition, motivation and confidence among the mappers.
Like many other businesses, NAXA has also been badly affected by the crisis caused due to the Covid-19 lockdown. However, With the core mission to help make Nepal a technologically advanced and developed country, Naxa continuously works to introduce new and innovative tools , technologies and initiatives. Earning money only has not been the major motivation of our establishment since the very beginning. All of the initiatives highlighted above began voluntarily.
We would like to invite development partners, agencies and any organizations/individuals willing to support or volunteer with us in these kinds of initiatives, we warmly welcome them .