Alberta joins global coalition against COVID-19

Amii lends AI expertise to interdisciplinary team

As the world continues to adjust to the new normal of the realities of COVID-19, Amii is offering our expertise as part of the Roche Data Science Coalition.

Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche) is committed to working with the global community to develop solutions to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have assembled a group of like-minded public and private organizations with a common mission and vision to bring actionable intelligence to patients, frontline healthcare providers, institutions, supply chains, and government. We call ourselves the Roche Data Science Coalition.

The collaboration launches with the UNCOVER challenge (United Network for COVID Data Exploration and Research) on Kaggle.com. The challenge presents a curated collection of datasets from 20 global sources and asks participants to model solutions to key questions that were developed and evaluated by a global frontline of healthcare providers, hospitals, suppliers, and policymakers.

“The Roche Data Science Coalition has come together at a crucial time for the world,” says Amii CEO Cam Linke. “Cross-sector collaboration is key for developing globally-relevant solutions, and Amii is eager to join with other top minds to solidify Alberta’s role in meeting the unique challenges facing the world today.”

Amii scientists will represent Alberta by lending our AI and machine learning expertise to the coalition’s working group alongside public and private organizations like NVIDIA, The Vector Institute and ThinkData Works, among others. Our teams will also open up office hours and idea-generating whiteboard sessions to working group members looking to better understand how to incorporate AI into their solutions.

The coalition is focused on support in three key areas: patient support, insights into capacity issues, and research enhancement. The Kaggle challenge is made up of 12 tasks developed and evaluated by global frontline healthcare providers, hospitals, supply chain and public bodies:

1. Which populations are at risk for contracting COVID-19?
2. Which populations have contracted COVID-19 and require ventilators?
3. Which populations have contracted COVID-19 who require the ICU?
4. Which patient populations pass away from COVID-19?
5. Which populations assessed should stay home and which should see an HCP?
6. Which populations of clinicians and patients require protective equipment?
7. Which populations of clinicians are most likely to contract COVID-19?
8. How are patterns of care changing for current patients (i.e. cancer patients)?
9. What is the change in turnaround time for routine lab values for oncology patients?
10. What is the incidence of infection with coronavirus among cancer patients?
11. Are hospital resources being diverted from providing oncology care to support the COVID-19 response?
12. How is the implementation of existing strategies affecting the rates of COVID-19 infection?

The Roche Data Science Coalition is requesting the collaborative effort of the AI community around the world to contribute to the fight against COVID-19 by sharing their modelled solutions using the presented data and if needed, their own proprietary and non-proprietary datasets. 

Together, we can get through this, and we can innovate to make a difference. Join the Kaggle competition today.

Read more about Amii’s commitments to the global fight against COVID-19.