By creating Perl language software, Professor Balan was able to capture Wi-Fi signals from thousands of mobile devices on the NUS campus, solving a challenge of concern to Professor Chee in early 2020.
“I have an idea about presymptomatic transmission in March before knowledge gave the impression [and] a crowd detection formula that can collect data on people’s concentration passively and anonymously,” explains Professor Chee of the Office of Technology Research and Transfer.
He had an idea of what a colleague, Professor Wang Linfa of Duke-NUS Medical School, had told him after a trip to China in January. a disease that is less fatal than SARS “but would spread more widely. “
“I contacted what I knew and advised me to contact Rajesh. We assembled a team of other people who were completely strange in a very short time and created a NUS formula to map other people’s density. “
COVID-19 in schools and advertising(s)
The formula adds and maps over time when and where other people meet, helping to inform policy makers about the effectiveness of policies: “When amphitheaters are tightly closed as a result of the implementation of online learning, do academics meet instead?”
“What we are looking for is to help our universities that are facing the same problem, namely,” How are we going to provide safe environments for our students? Professor Balan explains, spaces are used, how social distance is maintained, where other people go and if that of other people is effective “.
“I provide generation for this task, while Michael focuses on interacting with end users, information, policies and key people. It works well. “
Professor Balan had worked on loose Perl scripts until July, when he implemented and won a grant from the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) Central Gap Fund. Essentially a proof-of-concept grant (POC), Professor Balan will lead the task for two months. until September, the first step towards commercialization of the underlying technology.
“The NRF has made the decision that this allocation has the opportunity to produce something tangible in two months that will be of use to the country. That’s why they gave us the grant.
Beyond tracking other people, anonymously, to restrict the spread of the disease, the underlying generation can be implemented in any scenario involving a large number of other people. as long as the purpose is identified, whether crowd control, traffic or anything else.
While higher education institutes have recently started the 2020/21 school year, Professor Balan collects knowledge to solve system disorders in order to achieve a dual goal: to provide data to social esttachment measures and to create a more physically powerful marketing product. .
“We are building it so that we can show that it is useful, and this will show after the school semester is over,” he observes. “We will show SMU and NUS and maybe someone will show interest.
“We will use the grant money and strengthen some of the prototypes. He’s not in a trading position yet. This is an opportunity to propose improvements. “
Unusual beginnings
While allocation can become an invaluable tool for social estating and crowd control beyond COVID-19, its genesis was the allocation that makes up the majority of educational research.
“Projects usually come from someone who has a wonderful idea of studies, or because they need to publish an article, etc. ,” says Professor Balan. to do, and we have a chance to do anything. “
“This is not a ‘research project’ as such,” says Professor Chee, echoing Professor Balan. “The concept from the beginning of how to help other people by reducing the threat of transmission through social distancing.