Linux Foundation Public Health Initiative to use Apple/Google developed system

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, has launched a new initiative to use open source technologies to help public health authorities (PHAs) around the world combat COVID-19 and future epidemics. 

The new Linux Foundation Public Health (LFPH) initiative is launching with seven Premier members – Cisco, doc.ai, Geometer, IBM, NearForm, Tencent, and VMware – and two hosted exposure notifications projects, COVID Shield and COVID GreenTM, which are currently being deployed in Canada, Ireland, and several U.S. states.

LFPH will initially focus on exposure notification applications that use the Google Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) system and will be expanding to support all aspects of PHA’s testing, tracing, and isolation activities, says Dan Kohn, LFPH general manager. “While we’re excited to launch with two very important open source projects, we think our convening function to enable collaboration to battle this pandemic may be our biggest impact.”

COVID Shield was developed by a volunteer team at Shopify and is in the process of being deployed in Canada. COVID Green was developed by a team at NearForm as part of the Irish Government’s response to the pandemic. Since being deployed by Ireland’s Health Services Executive two weeks ago, it has achieved extraordinarily high adoption of over one-third of the country’s adults, according to Kohn. Both apps are available for other PHAs and their IT partners to use and customize and will soon be joined by other open source projects hosted by LFPH. Covid Watch, Kiel University of Applied Sciences, and US Digital Response have also joined as nonprofit associate members.

COVID Shield was developed by a volunteer team of more than 40 developers from Shopify, along with members of the Ontario and Canadian Digital Services. While not an official Shopify project, the efforts were supported by Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke. “

In addition to COVID Shield and COVID Green, an earlier cross-industry collaboration effort, the TCN Coalition, is merging into LFPH. The TCN Coalition is a global community of technologists supporting the development of privacy-preserving and cross-compatible exposure notification apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially founded to ensure cross-border interoperability and to reduce duplication of development efforts, the TCN Coalition has evolved to include supporting public health authorities in their engagements with app-building teams and IT providers.