BANGKOK and MANILA (PRWEB)
June 27, 2020
Geoprise, maker of the GM-X™ enterprise resources planning (ERP) application suite, and Service 101, an IT consulting company, jointly announced today the availability of Tracy and The Kid, the world’s first end-to-end smartphone and backend contact tracing solution. It is the culmination of a collaboration between the two firms which began in late April 2020.
Contact tracing is a well-established process for discovering a patient’s movements and the people with whom the patient had close contact after becoming contagious. When done in tandem with rapid testing, it is regarded by the medical community as an essential tool for reopening society as quickly as possible while reducing the likelihood as well as the ultimate severity of second and subsequent COVID-19 waves in the future.
“Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, public attention has focused on the allure of tech for smartphones, and other mobile devices like wearables, to slow the spread of the disease,” said Nelson Nones, Geoprise CEO. “All the mobile solutions which have been proposed or rolled out so far by tech firms such as Apple® and Google® require a central server and database of some kind, yet fail to provide those backend systems or leave integration with legacy backend systems up to public health agencies and healthcare providers who are already stretched thin fighting the pandemic,” he added. “Tracy and the Kid is the first turnkey solution on the market which provides round-trip communication between smartphones and servers and can be implemented immediately and economically either on a perpetual-use or subscription basis.”
Traditionally, contact tracing applications have been developed by, or for, local and regional as well as national government agencies and large healthcare providers. Considering the scale and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Geoprise and Service 101 foresee additional demand arising from private businesses which would benefit from investments in rapid testing and contact tracing solutions that enable them to reopen faster and safer. “If government-sponsored programs are delayed or prove inadequate, consortia of private enterprises could, for their own benefit, step up to sponsor the deployment of systems operated by capable and mutually trusted NGOs or healthcare providers,” said Jonathan Javier, CEO of Service 101, “while individually bearing only a fraction of the deployment and operating costs.”
Tracy, developed by Service 101, is a mobile application which uses the Bluetooth radios embedded in most smartphones to automatically log histories of encounters with other smartphones which come within close range. It is derived from the open source TraceTogether app published by the Singapore Government Technology Agency and Ministry of Health in March 2020. TraceTogether, with 2 million downloads by mid-June 2020, was the world’s first contact tracing application for smartphones to take advantage of Bluetooth technology, and ranks among the top eight contact tracing apps in use throughout the world today.
The Kid, developed by Geoprise, is the server application which registers Tracy smartphone installations and receives encounter histories voluntarily uploaded from smartphones by owners who have caught the COVID-19 virus. It is an adaptation of the GM-X ERP application for use by human contact tracers to identify other persons who were in close contact with COVID-19 patients during the virus’s incubation period, and advise them to self-isolate in order to contain the spread of infection. The GM-X application, in turn, provides a highly secure blockchain platform for exchanging contact tracing information between healthcare providers and public health agencies, or between the operators of systems sponsored by private enterprises and public health agencies, in a manner that is permanent, tamper-proof and verifiable.
“For mobile contact tracing apps, two architectures ― centralized and decentralized ― are being adopted within various countries and states,” said Javier. “Currently, Tracy and The Kid follow Singapore’s centralized protocol as a reference implementation, but our platform can readily support decentralized protocols as well. This would be a necessity for any country or state which decides to use the Bluetooth APIs rolled out by Apple and Google in May 2020,” he added.
Privacy protection is a critical concern, particularly when contact tracing apps combine Bluetooth proximity sensing with geolocation tracking. “We were committed at the outset to build a solution which protects the privacy of individuals,” said Javier, “which means that Tracy and The Kid make no use of geolocation tracking whatsoever, just like the Apple and Google APIs and Singapore’s protocol.”
The product names, Tracy and The Kid, evolved from the fictitious server user Tracy Tracer which Geoprise and Service 101 initially created for their proof-of-concept work. “I remember the movie Dick Tracy, which was based upon Chester Gould’s renowned comic strip featuring a police detective who wore a two-Way Wrist Radio back in 1946 and a two-Way Wrist TV starting in 1964, presaging the advent of today’s smartphones by many decades,” Javier recalled. “The Kid was a nameless throwaway who stole for his stepfather but was smart and resourceful, so Dick Tracy converted him to crimefighting. The Kid joined so many of Tracy’s investigations that Tracy eventually adopted him,” Javier explained, “just like the collaboration between Geoprise and Service 101.”
About Geoprise
Geoprise Technologies Corporation was formed in 1999 by a group of software executives with over a century of previous cumulative experience building enterprise resources planning (ERP) and manufacturing operations management systems, and implementing them worldwide. The privately-held company’s mission, then and now, is to create exceptional value for its customers by harnessing the power and economy of information technology to enable lean, world-class industrial operations on a global scale. Today, Geoprise focuses exclusively on delivering its state-of-the-art GM-X ERP for Blockchain solution to businesses operating in North America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim. Geoprise values integrity by maintaining strict independence, intense commitment to business ethics and profound respect for intellectual property rights. For further information, visit the company’s website at https://www.geoprise.com.
About Service 101
Service 101 plus Consulting Inc. (Service 101) is a Philippine-based information technology software and services company founded by passionate, experienced, and expert information technology professionals; and backed by a combined 75+ years of work experience with various multinational and local companies engaged in wholesale distribution, utilities, retail, healthcare, and professional services. Service 101 is in the business of implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, deploying web and mobile solutions, delivering technical support through outsourcing engagement, and providing technology governance consulting. For more information, please visit: https://www.service101plus.com.
