In 2015, Bill Gates while giving a speech at Munich mentioned that nothing is worse for mankind than an outbreak. An infectious pathogen can harm the entire world that no nuclear weapon or natural disaster can do. Looking at the scenario of 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 has proofed every world of him is true. It’s been around five months that people around the globe have been traumatized by a virus turning our life upside down within a few days. The world will be highly benefited if the probability of such infectious diseases can be predicted with accuracy. BlueDot, a company based in Toronto, Canada has been striving to accomplish it using advanced AI and ML. We are living in a data-driven world where everything is based on the amount of data we receive and transfer every day.
BlueDot is famous for building technology exclusively based on data analysis to predict the risk of such outbreaks. With the help of data science, they create models to observe different areas and timing depending on various factors where a chance of any kind of infectious outbreak is high. They help the government and hospitals to take precautionary measures to minimize the risk of any damages.
Who founded BlueDot?
Kamran Khan is the founder of BlueDot Inc. He founded the company in 2009 and delved deeper into the unexplored world of data science to bring a massive change in the medical world. Kamran Khan has a very strong medical background and that is probably the reason he wanted to do something innovative to save the world from infectious diseases.
Kamran khan has a degree in Doctor of Medicine from the University of Toronto and graduated in 1996. He went to Columbia University in the City of New York and received a degree in Master of Public Health. He started practicing as a Clinician at St. Michaels Hospital from 2003 and still working there. In 2010, he joined the University of Toronto as an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. The same year, he also joined the World Health Organization as a Medical Advisor. After three years, he founded BlueDot comprising of a talented bunch of scientists, engineers, data analysts, and experts from other fields to improve global health conditions.
Journey of BlueDot
While working at St. Michaels Hospital, Kamran launched a scientific program called BioDiaspora. This program’s main objective was to study how the spread of infectious diseases is correlated with commercial air travel. Thus, he studied its impact on different populations worldwide. In 2009, the result of this program was implemented to predict the first influenza pandemic of this century. The model of BioDiaspora helped to predict the degree of impact on a global level. The company found out that the air travelers from Mexico were carrying novel influenza without their knowledge to various cities around the world.
In 2012, the company jointly worked with Public Health England to estimate and take precautions at a local level from foreign pathogens. This year, the main field of their research was the spreading of infectious diseases in mass gatherings and how to predict it via mathematical modeling. In 2013, the BioDiaspora received plenty of support from St. Michaels Hospital and MaRS Innovation and got incorporated as Certified B Corporation.
BioDiaspora started expanding slowly and with seed funding from Horizon Ventures, the company established itself rigidly and renamed it as BlueDot. With the help of data science and mathematical modeling, BlueDot in 2014 successfully predicted the migration of the Ebola virus out of West Africa. After a couple of years, the risk assessment models of BlueDot successfully predicted an outbreak of Zika in Florida months before it took place.
Launch of George
Over the years BlueDot received impressive funding. In Series, A funding round the company raised $7 million making its total funding to $9.5 million. Throughout the years, BlueDot has been helping government and healthcare professionals by predicting risks way ahead of time. But, in 2017, BlueDot launched the software George to help common people protect themselves from infectious diseases. This software was mainly launched for travelers who send personalized alerts based on location and how to take preventive measures.
Prediction of COVID-19 outbreak
The algorithms of BlueDot are so brilliantly designed that it was one of the first companies to predict the outbreak of novel coronavirus. In the New Year’s Eve of 2020, BlueDot spread out an alert that an infectious flu-disease has broken out in the city of Wuhan, China. They went through several medical reports, news bulletin, and livestock reports to confirm the prediction. BlueDot is truly doing a commendable job and maybe it would stop the world from witnessing such outbreaks in the future.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more