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From YouTube: Keynote: Breaking Transmission Chains with JavaScript - Cian Ó Maidín, President & Founder, Nearform
Description
Keynote: Breaking Transmission Chains with JavaScript - Cian Ó Maidín, President and Founder, Nearform
One of the greatest responses to COVID-19 has been technological. The brightest minds in the technology industry came together to create a new system to digitally track the virus at a scale, while respecting people’s privacy.
In 2020, NearForm developed what is now the most widely adopted COVID-19 Exposure Notification app in the world. Over five months, the team deployed and scaled their digital contact tracing solution for nine governments.
In this talk, Cian will share the challenges of building an app for all, the importance of getting it right from the start, while working to tight deadlines against an ever evolving pandemic. Cian will discuss how NearForm used an open source approach to public health to help break chains of transmission and save lives using JavaScript.
A
A
So
I'm
42
years
old,
I'm
computer
scientist,
I
live
in
a
small
town
called
tremor
in
county
waterford,
which
is
in
the
southeast
of
ireland.
I
live
with
my
wife,
a
media.
My
three
kids
and
you
know
I've
done
I've
done
some
interesting
things
in
my
career.
You
know,
primarily,
you
know,
founded
near
form
about
nine
years
ago,
notecom
for
you
and
some
other
things.
A
So
a
little
bit
about
near
form
started
a
company.
About
nine
years
ago
we've
been
pretty
successful.
We've
got
200
people
now
operating
out
of
about
20
countries.
Everybody
works
remotely
at
our
our
company
and
what
we
do
is
we
design
we
build
and
we
operate
web
mobile
and
cloud
platforms
at
scale
primarily
for
public
companies
and
and
tech
companies.
A
So
enough
about
me
so
today
I
want
to
tell
you
the
story
of
how
we
built
the
most
widely
used
exposure
notification
app
in
the
world
last
year.
It's
pretty
pretty
amazing
adventure,
probably
one
of
the
best
best
adventures
I've
had
in
my
in
my
career,
so
before
I
jump
into
it.
I'd
like
to
give
you
a
little
bit
of
my
own
story.
A
A
I
developed
a
really
bad
cough
and
it
was
a
cough
which
was
bad
to
the
point
of
almost
vomiting
from
the
kind
of
coughing
that
I
was
doing
and
and
so
eventually,
on
sunday
I
went
to
to
go
and
see
the
doctor
and-
and-
and
you
know
the
night
before
I'd
been
in
bed
kind
of
looking
at
some
of
this
stuff.
They
were
talking
about
a
pandemic
coming
out
of
china
and
all
these
things
happening
in
the
news.
So
I
was
kind
of
thinking
in
the
back
of
my
head.
A
I
couldn't
have
like
this.
This
covert
thing
that
they're
talking
about
I
went
to
doctor
and
the
doctor
examined
me
and
he
said
you
have
a
chest
infection
and
you
have
a
flu
which
was
kind
of
an
unusual
combination
of
things.
So
he
gave
me
some
antibiotics
and
other
things
that
didn't
do
any
good
for
me
at
all.
I
went
home
and
I
got
into
bed
and
I
was
really
really
sick
at
a
high
fever.
A
I
had
shortness
of
breath
and
wheezed
for
the
first
time
my
entire
life,
I
just
felt
really
really
crummy.
The
interesting
thing
is
my
wife
also
got
sick
that
week
and
she
went
to
the
doctor
and
the
doctor
said
to
her.
You
have
a
chest
infection
and
a
flu
and
gave
her
more
antibiotics
and
things
that
didn't
do
very
much
for
her.
A
She
wasn't
too
bad
with
it,
but
I
was,
I
was
pretty
sick,
so
I
really
struggled
over
the
next
three
or
four
weeks
to
try
and
get
back
to
work
found
that
I
wasn't
like.
I
go
back
to
work
for
a
couple
of
days.
Then
they'd
end
up
back
in
bed
again,
so
it
really
took
me
like
about
five
weeks
to
get
over
it.
The
funny
thing
is
that
you
know
during
the
first
week
that
I
spent
in
bed.
A
I
was,
I
spent
more
time,
reading
about
this,
like
this
new
virus
that
they
were
talking
about
and
maybe
there's
going
to
be
a
pandemic
and
all
that
stuff-
and
I
said
to
my
wife
that
there's
a
pandemic
coming
and-
and
she
she
was
like
laughing
at
me-
saying,
like
you
know,
don't
believe
everything
you
see
on
the
internet,
all
that
good
stuff,
but
like.
Ultimately,
I
was
proven
to
be
right
and,
and
things
got
pretty
scary
in
the
world.
You
know
in
february
and
march
of
last
year.
A
I
guess
I
characterize
how
things
were
for
me
anyway.
I
I
felt
like
for
somebody.
That's
really
tried
to
take
control
of
my
life,
and
I
made
things
happen
that
this
external
event
had
happened,
and
I
just
felt
really
powerless
like
there
was
nothing
I
could
particularly
do
to
to
make
a
difference
to
what
was
going
on
in
the
world
and
everyone
else,
I'm
sure
felt
the
same
way,
so
they
declared
a
pandemic
eventually.
A
A
A
So
so
I
guess
the
the
things
that
I
would
say
around
building
the
cover
tracker
that
are
important
would
would
be
like
that
in
terms
of
building
the
app
there
were
some
core
principles
that
we
discussed
at
the
very
beginning.
One
was
empowering
people.
We
felt
that
an
app
that
just
did
exposure
notifications
and
exposure
notifications
are
when
you're,
when
you're
in
proximity
to
somebody
else
for
a
number
of
minutes.
Typically,
six
foot
proximity
for
15
minutes.
A
If
one,
if
the
person
you
you
have
the
app
the
other
person
with
the
app
the
exchange,
bluetooth,
key
and
one
person
gets
infected
and
the
other
person
gets
told
about
it,
we
felt
that
just
having
that
functionality
within
an
app
itself
wouldn't
be
enough
to
keep
people
engaged,
and
so
we
thought
about.
How
can
we
empower
people?
A
So
we
put
in
like
a
check-in
daily
check-in
function
to
the
app
a
symptom
tracker
and
then
also
some
data
on,
what's
happening
around
infections
in
your
local
area,
we
knew
that
the
app
needed
to
be
privacy
first
and
privacy
protecting
that
was
the
most
important
thing,
because
if
people
don't
trust
the
technology
they're
not
going
to
download
it
they're
not
going
to
install
it.
So
we
made
sure
that
everything
within
the
app
was
optional.
It
was
really
clearly
labeled.
A
So
we
started
working
on
this.
We
built
from
that
sunday
night.
Ten
days
later
on
wednesday,
the
first
of
april,
we
had
a
working
version
of
what
is
now
the
cover
tracker
app.
It
had
a
custom
bluetooth
stack
that
we
developed
because
there
didn't
exist
at
the
time,
any
official
exposure
notification
api
from
google
and
apple.
A
So
a
couple
of
weeks
later,
apple
and
google
announced
they
were
releasing
the
exposure
notification,
api
for
ios
and
android
and
and
then
a
decision
was
made
pretty
quickly
that
we
were
going
to
like
not
use
our
our
homegrown
bluetooth
stack
and
we're
going
to
adopt
this.
So
we
had
to
go
and
rebuild
this
thing.
We
had
to
retest
it
and
we
did
that
during
may
and
june
off
of
the
year.
We
also
had
to
do
things
like
that
multi-language
support.
A
We
did
like
accelerated
behavioral
studies,
so
we
really
looked
at
the
language
in
the
app.
You
know
things
like
you
know
when
I
download
the
app
only
protecting
myself.
Am
I
protecting
others
like
what?
What
are
the
best
ways
to
describe
things?
What
are
going
to
get
people
to
use
the
app?
We
worked
with
accessibility
groups
in
advance
of
launch
and
then
the
big
things.
The
really
big
things
were.
A
So
so
you
know
the
cover
tracker
app
was
born.
There's
a
couple
of
screenshots
here
you
have
the
login
screen
on
the
the
front
page
screen
on
the
very
left
hand
side.
Here
you
get
some
information
about
the
number
of
people
that
checked
in
today.
How
many
are
feeling
good?
How
many
have
some
symptoms
what's
happening
nationally?
You
can
click
into
that
and
various
other
things
and
then
there's
some
of
the
other
pieces
off
some
other
screens
about
the
setup
and
registration
of
the
app.
A
A
So,
when
the
app
launched
on
eventually,
I
think
some
of
the
tweets
that
people
sent
out
were
really
nice.
You
know,
is
someone
talking
about
the
data
protection.
You
know
the
impact
protection
impact
information
is
written
in
plain
english,
people
can
opt
in
and
opt
out
and
it
doesn't
access
your
file,
camera
et
cetera.
A
So
the
minister
for
health
in
ireland,
stephen
donnelly,
launched
the
app
formerly
on
july
7th
actually
turns
out.
It
was
my
birthday
that
day
and
and
it
was
a
huge
success,
so
the
plan
had
been
that
that
it
was
going
to
be
a
soft
launch
for
the
first
week,
see
how
it
goes,
and
then
there
was
going
to
be
a
big
pr
campaign
and
on
july
the
7th
ireland
really
stood
up
that
day
and
everybody
got
behind
the
app
people
are
talking
about
it.
A
On
the
radio
on
television
on
social
media
and
lots
of
celebrities,
different
people
got
behind
it
and
they
were
like.
We
need
to
do
this.
We
and
I
think,
a
lot
of
the
work
and
the
behavioral
studies
and
the
messaging
was
really
important.
This
is
about
protecting
each
other
and
standing
up
together
to
to
be
coveted,
and
so
we
ended
up
having
more
than
a
million
people
started
using
the
app
in
the
first
24
hours
from
launch,
and
it
was.
It
was
a
huge
success,
so
scaling.
A
So
once
we
had
launched
the
app
and
we
were
well,
we
were
getting
close
to
launching
the
app
a
number
of
other
governments
started.
Talking
to
us,
because
you
know
all
the
health
departments
talk
to
each
other
and
word
was
going
around-
that
we
were
doing
something
the
right
way.
So
we
started
really
thinking
at
this
stage
about
well.
A
Any
government
can
download
it
use
it
for
free,
and
you
know
it
just
made
a
lot
of
sense
to
people,
so
in
particular,
once
the
first
government
had
actually
built
this
thing
and
rolled
it
out
and
tested
it,
then
being
able
to
access
all
the
work
and
all
all
the
you
know,
the
the
backing
of
all
that
work
that
had
gone
into
it.
You
know
made
a
lot
of
sense
for
somebody
else
that
wanted
to
pick
it
up
or
versus
like
build
something
from
scratch.
A
The
other
thing
was
that
we
we
really
weren't
in
this
to
make
money.
So
the
cost
per
system
after
the
first
one
was
about
25
percent,
the
original
implementation.
So
really
we
were
just
trying
to
customize
the
work
that
had
already
been
done
and
get
people
up
and
running
as
quickly
as
possible
and
and
the
other
piece
is
that
the
you
know
each
implementation
like
added
to
the
strength
of
the
overall
open
source
project.
A
So
you
know,
features
that
that
are
or
things
that
one
government
one
jurisdiction
might
need,
would
get
committed
to
the
project
and
go
back
into
the
master
branch.
And
then
the
other
governments
would
get
to
access
that
and
and
get
a
benefit
from
it.
So
there's
a
really
good
test
case
for
open
source
kind
of
proud
moment
for
us.
A
You
know,
in
the
middle
of
doing
all
this
rollout
was
that
we
started
getting
some
traction
in
europe
with
the
the
project,
and
then
we
started
getting
some
initial
conversations
going
in
the
united
states
and
and
so
it
became
important
for
us
to
put
the
the
project
into
a
neutral
repository.
So
we
created
this
project
with
the
hse
called
a
covert
green.
It's
green
for
ireland
and
it's
also
green
for
the
map.
A
So
the
highlights
of
the
project.
For
me,
the
the
highlights
of
this
project
were
like
the
the
the
nature
of
what
we
achieved
in
this
in
a
short
amount
of
time.
So
you
know
we
managed
to
do
all
this.
A
team
of
no
more
than
about
15
people,
work
in
form
managed
to
you
know,
take
the
first
call
on
the
22nd
of
march
and
by
26
weeks
later
we
did
our
last
deployment,
which
was
new
jersey.
So
you
know
we
got
on
it.
We
solved
the
problem.
A
You
know.
In
ireland
we
got
about
40
to
the
adult
population
were
using
the
cover
tracker
at
this
height,
which
is
pretty
impressive,
and
the
app
itself
saved
lives,
significant
number
of
lives
and
reduced
a
lot
prevented
a
lot
of
people
from
getting
sick,
and
the
other
thing
is
that
ireland
and
the
north
of
ireland,
so
north
of
ireland
were
a
second
rollout.
A
They
were
the
first
two
countries
at
the
first
tube
health
services
in
the
world
to
interoperate
and
have
like
a
common
format
where
people
could
use
the
app
in
the
north
of
ireland
north
of
ireland
up
and
come
down
south,
and
it
would
work
perfectly
well.
In
summary,
I'd
like
to
think
that
we're
we're
going
to
be
much
more
well
prepared
for
the
next
pandemic.
Lots
of
learnings
lots
of
lots
of
assets
in
place
now
infrastructure
like
cover
green
and
things
like
this.
A
I
really
think
that
it's
perfect,
it's
a
perfect
use
case
for
open
source
and
and
infrastructure
like
this,
should
be
in
the
public
domain.
Like
you
know,
problems
that
we
have
in
one
country
that
we
have
to
address
by
and
large
are
the
same
as
the
problems
we
have
in
other
countries
and
the
open
source
approach
itself
has
has
done
some
really
interesting
things.
A
It's
created
a
lot
of
new
connections,
so
you
know
the
work
we've
done
has
managed
to
create
a
a
network
between
10
10,
different
health
health
bodies
from
ireland
to
pennsylvania,
whereby
over
time,
we'd
like
to
like
make
this
into
a
bigger
thing
and
we'd
like
to
get
more
health
health
bodies
talking
to
each
other
and
innovating,
and
sharing
what
they're
learning
sharing
what
they're
creating,
and
that
can
only
be
a
good
thing
so
yeah.
I
hope
you
found
this
talk,
informative.