Turkish contact-tracing app to be unveiled soon

A mobile application developed by young Turkish entrepreneurs to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus will be presented to users soon, one of its developers has said.

A group of 16 technology enthusiasts developed the "Corowarner" app which allows community-driven contact tracing.

"The Corowarner app alerts you instantly and anonymously if you had close contact with an individual in a market, pharmacy or bus who tested positive for the virus," Efe Kart, one of the project developers of the app, said.

"The app was basically designed to send a notification like 'X days ago, you encountered a person who tested positive for COVID-19' without revealing the patient's identity. Then it provides the user with timely guidance by observing their current symptoms based on their ages and chronic diseases," Kart said.

Two teams, CoroWarner and GüvendeKal! (Stay Safe), decided to unify their projects which were both shortlisted at the Coronathon Türkiye event last month.

He added that the app will provide advice based on the degree of proximity to the positive-tested individual by using an artificial intelligence-based algorithm.

"We will ask for permission to access the app user's GPS and bluetooth data to estimate the proximity and duration of an encounter between two users - one who tested positive for the virus and the other who was at risk of being infected," he said.

As more people use the app, the more efficient the tracing becomes, he stressed, aiming to play an important role in mitigating the spread of the disease.

"We are in contact with several municipalities and firms with 10-15,000 employees, and seeking to immediately make the app prevalent to reduce the risk of transmission," he said.

A number of...