COVI

COVI was a research project by Mila that led to a mobile health app. It used AI to help people fight COVID-19. In March 2020, Mila brought the app to Libéo, where I was a front-end developer. The challenge: a smart, anonymous and secure contact tracing app that could handle a heavy load, shipped in about two months.

What the app did

• Contact tracing over Bluetooth.
• A personal risk level, estimated by Mila’s AI from factors such as age, gender and symptoms.
• Predicting contagion in given areas, and the next COVID-19 waves.
• An educational side for the public.

Privacy first

The app followed the principles of the joint statement by Canada’s privacy commissioners, and drew on the Montréal Declaration for Responsible AI. The data was managed by COVI Canada, a non-profit, to prevent any secondary use, commercial or otherwise.

Team and tech

More than 20 digital experts, working agile in two-week cycles. The interface was built with Flutter, from a single codebase.

What happened next

The Canadian government went with Apple and Google’s technology instead. COVI’s source code was then released under an open-source license. The app is now offline.

Source: Libéo’s case study.