====== BlueDot ======

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**BlueDot Inc.** is a private Canadian [[artificial intelligence]] software company based in Toronto, Ontario.((Vendeville, G. (2020, March 27). //U of T infectious disease expert’s AI firm now part of Canada’s COVID-19 arsenal.// University of Toronto News. https://archive.ph/IjwMh)) It is intended to operate as an early warning system for emerging infectious diseases across the globe.

The company's ownership includes [[Golden Ventures]], [[BDC Capital]], [[The Co-operators]], [[Horizons Ventures]], and [[Ontario Centre of Innovation]].((//BlueDot Company Profile: Valuation & Investors.// Pitchbook. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://archive.ph/b2cO7))

BlueDot is notable in the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] due to its role in detecting the initial outbreak of an "undiagnosed pneumonia" in [[Wuhan]], China, and its apparent ties to the [[People's Liberation Army]] of China via Hong Kong business magnate [[Li Ka-Shing]].

===== Affiliations =====

==== Staff ====

BlueDot's team is made up of doctors, veterinarians, scientists, epidemiologists, data scientists, software developers, designers, and engineers.

^  BlueDot team members  ^^^
^ Name  ^ Position  ^ Notes  ^
| [[Kamran Khan]]  | Founder  | -  |
| [[Alexander Watts]]  | Employee  | -  |
| [[Andrea Thomas-Bachli]]  | Employee  | -  |
| [[Carmen Huber]]  | Employee  | -  |
| [[Isaac Bogoch]]  | Consultant  | Member of the Modelling Consensus Table of the [[Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table]]  |
==== Clients ====

=== Air Travel Industry ===

[[Air Canada]] is a current client of BlueDot, as is the [[Greater Toronto Airport Authority]] (GTAA).

=== Government ===

Canadian Prime Minister [[covid-19_pandemic:politics:Justin Trudeau]] contracted BlueDot through the [[public_health_agencies:Public Health Agency of Canada]] (PHAC) for its own [[COVID-19]] modelling and monitoring.((//The first company to identify the coronavirus outbreak – Bluedot.// (2020, June 23). Bayslope. https://archive.ph/Flrs4)) ((//Canada’s plan to mobilize science to fight COVID-19.// (2020). Prime Minister of Canada. https://archive.ph/aTY4K)) 

Other government clients include the [[City of Chicago]] and [[Taiwan Centers for Disease Control]]. California Governor [[Gavin Newsom]] praised BlueDot as "an incredible company that came in, looking with AI and big data to analyze travel patterns… We’re not looking again at the aggregate of our healthcare delivery system but where we’ll be stretched, by ZIP code."((//Our Clients | BlueDot Case Studies.// BlueDot. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://archive.ph/KFTCo))

===== Background =====

The company was founded in 2008 under the project name DiaSpora by Dr. [[Kamran Khan]], a professor at the [[University of Toronto]] and infectious disease specialist at [[St. Michael’s Hospital]].((//The first company to identify the coronavirus outbreak – Bluedot.// (2020, June 23). Bayslope. https://archive.ph/Flrs4)) Initial development took place in collaboration with the [[Centre for Research on Inner City Health]], [[Ryerson University]], the [[University of Manitoba]] and the world’s largest commercial airport and air transport organizations.((//Impact Report 2010/2011.// (2011). Centre for Research on Inner City Health; St. Michael’s Hospital. https://web.archive.org/web/20130721142723/http://www.stmichaelshospital.com:80/pdf/crich/crich-impact-report-2010-11.pdf)) 

Khan cites the [[SARS]] outbreak of 2003 and its detrimental effects on the [[City of Toronto]] as the primary motivation for the creation of DiaSpora. The company is said to have "attracted interest from public health, biodefense and industry groups worldwide, all of which are looking for real-time, global epidemic intelligence to protect their interests."((//Bio.Diaspora: Preventing the next pandemic.// (2011, November 24). MaRS Discovery District. https://archive.ph/p7LKy))

In June 2011, St. Michael’s Hospital brought Diaspora to [[mars_discovery_district|MaRS Innovation]] for market potential evaluation.((//Bio.Diaspora: Preventing the next pandemic.// (2011, November 24). MaRS Discovery District. https://archive.ph/p7LKy))
===== Projects =====

==== The BIO.DIASPORA Project ====

DiaSpora produced a report in 2009 in collaboration with the [[Centre for Research on Inner City Health]] at [[St. Michael's Hospital]] titled "An Analysis of Canada’s Vulnerability to Emerging Infectious Disease Threats via the Global Airline Transportation Network".((//An Analysis of Canada’s Vulnerability to Emerging Infectious Disease Threats via the Global Airline Transportation Network.// (2009). The Centre for Research on Inner City Health; St. Michael’s Hospital. https://paulojraposo.github.io/assets/biodiasporareport2009_lowres.pdf)) In addition to [[Kamran Khan]], the team included [[Julien Arino]] of [[York University]] and the [[University of Manitoba]]; [[Felipe Calderon]], [[Angie Chan]], [[Jennifer Sears]], [[Paulo Raposo]], [[Wei Hu]] and [[Christine Heidebrecht]] of the [[Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute]]; Dr. [[Michael Gardam]] of the [[Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion]], [[University Health Network]] and the [[Dalla Lana School of Public Health]] at the [[University of Toronto]]; [[David Andrew Janes]] of the [[University of Waterloo]]; [[Michael MacDonald]] of [[Ryerson University]]; and [[Susan Wang]] of [[Queen's University]]. Funding was provided by the [[Public Health Agency of Canada]] (PHAC). The report shows the same interest in the 2003 [[SARS]] outbreak as its lead author, Khan.

By 2011, DiaSpora had helped countries anticipate and react to the spread of disease at mass gatherings such as the 2010 [[Olympic Games]] in Vancouver, Canada and the 2012 Games in London, England, the [[FIFA World Cup]], and the annual Hajj pilgrimage in [[Saudi Arabia]].((//Impact Report 2010/2011.// (2011). Centre for Research on Inner City Health; St. Michael’s Hospital. https://web.archive.org/web/20130721142723/http://www.stmichaelshospital.com:80/pdf/crich/crich-impact-report-2010-11.pdf)) 

{{::screen_shot_2022-02-24_at_9.47.30_am.png?200 |}}

DiaSpora partnered with the [[center for disease control and prevention|U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]] (CDC) and [[Harvard University]] to integrate the program with [[HealthMap]], a technology that monitors public websites and global online media for news of emerging diseases. 

==== Ebola ====

After Ebola spread across Africa in 2014, the newly-renamed BlueDot predicted its migration out of West Africa and published its results in the [[Lancet]].((Ogola, W. (2021, January 13). //How AI predicted the Coronavirus Outbreak.// Engineering Education (EngEd) Program; Section. https://archive.ph/2gE0y)) ((Bogoch, I. I., Brady, O. J., Kraemer, M. U. G., German, M., Creatore, M. I., Kulkarni, M. A., Brownstein, J. S., Mekaru, S. R., Hay, S. I., Groot, E., Watts, A., & Khan, K. (2016). //Anticipating the international spread of Zika virus from Brazil.// The Lancet, 387(10016), 335–336. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00080-5))
==== Zika ====

BlueDot accurately predicted a [[Zika]] outbreak in [[United_States_of_America:Florida]] six months before it occurred.((//The first company to identify the coronavirus outbreak – Bluedot.// (2020, June 23). Bayslope. https://archive.ph/Flrs4)) ((//Who We Are.// BlueDot. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://bluedot.global/press/))

==== COVID-19 ====

According to BlueDot, the company was the first in the world to detect the outbreak of [[COVID-19]] in Wuhan, China. It sent an alert to its customers on December 31, 2019, and used data on airline tickets to correctly predict the virus' travel to Bangkok, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo.((Niiler, E. (2020, January 25). //An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan Virus.// Wired. https://archive.ph/EAiP4)) This came nine days before the [[World Health Organization]] sent out their own public warning.((//The first company to identify the coronavirus outbreak – Bluedot.// (2020, June 23). Bayslope. https://archive.ph/Flrs4))

In January 2020, a team led by [[Isaac Bogoch]] published a rapid communication titled //"Pneumonia of unknown aetiology in Wuhan, China: potential for international spread via commercial air travel"// with the BlueDot team.((Bogoch, I. I., Watts, A., Thomas-Bachli, A., Huber, C., Kraemer, M. U. G., & Khan, K. (2020). //Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology in Wuhan, China: Potential for International Spread Via Commercial Air Travel.// Journal of Travel Medicine, 27(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa008)) The paper was submitted to the [[Journal of Travel Medicine]] on January 8, 2020, revised January 9, and accepted January 10.
===== Technology =====

==== Data Processing ====

BlueDot developers adopted [[Machine Learning]] (ML) and [[Natural Language Processing]] (NLP) algorithms to curate [[Big Data]] from many sources including global flights tickets sales data, animal infectious diseases data; population demographics data; hospitals & healthcare facilities data; livestock population data; real-time climate data; official reports from [[Public Health agencies]], unofficial reports from local news agencies, media, and health care blogs; and infectious disease outbreaks data.((Ogola, W. (2021, January 13). //How AI predicted the Coronavirus Outbreak.// Engineering Education (EngEd) Program; Section. https://archive.ph/2gE0y))
==== Patents ====

BlueDot holds several patents:

^ Name  ^ Number  ^ Date Registered  ^ Co-Applicants  ^
| [[https://www.campfire.wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wo2018237209a1.pdf|Systems and methods for identification of nucleic acids in a sample]]  | WO2018237209A1((Vuyisich, M., Gans, J., Chain, P., & Hatch, A. //Systems and methods for identification of nucleic acids in a sample.// Google Patents. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://archive.ph/lWjEM))  | June 21, 2017  | [[Los Alamos National Security]]  |
| [[https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/96/23/65/6be8362db3ee5b/WO2018160899A1.pdf|Systems and methods for metagenomic analysis]]  | WO2018160899A1((Vuyisich, M., Gans, J., Klitgord, N., LI, Po-E., & Chain, P. //Systems and methods for metagenomic analysis.// Google Patents. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://archive.ph/dX5CM))  | March 1, 2017  | [[Los Alamos National Security]]  |
| [[https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/cb/86/6f/5790753e646284/US10394776.pdf|Warning system for infectious diseases and method therefor]]  | US10394776((Khan, K. //Warning system for infectious diseases and method therefor.// Google Patents. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://archive.ph/1U7Px))  | February 13, 2012  | -  |
|[[https://www.campfire.wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=us8560339.pdf|System and method to predict the global spread of infectious agents via commercial air travel]]((Khan, K. //System and method to predict the global spread of infectious agents via commercial air travel.// Google Patents. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://archive.ph/rvxaW))  | US8560339  | April 2, 2008  | -  |

===== Link Dump =====

  * BioMosaic: https://archive.ph/jFFZh
  * Tracking COVID-19 variants: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/6-121/v2