Zeem: Using existing data to map, predict and prevent transmission

Zeems makes track and trace systems more inclusive, efficient and faster to deploy by using existing data and AI.

Kieran Witt, CEO and Co-founder

To manage the COVID outbreak, many governments have created track and trace mobile applications. We have identified three key problems with a mobile-based approach: 

• Coverage & inclusivity – Track and trace apps are dependants on the latest smartphones to function. As a result, the poorer and more elderly in society are excluded from these government systems by default. Silver Voice, a leading UK charity for senior citizens, found that 69% of its members had not downloaded the Uk solution, with nearly 6 in 7 citing their mobile phone is too old. Equivalent to roughly 10.6m people who cannot use the UK solution by default.
• Slow pandemic response times – mobile and app-based approaches are dependent on downloads. Experience has shown that this approach takes months to become effective, in part owing to time to deploy and part user uptake, delaying the time it takes to limit an outbreak and save lives.
• Obsolescence - The average person deletes redundant health-related mobile apps after 8.8 days. When the COVID pandemic dissipates, so does the need for track and traces mobile apps. They will be deleted en-masse, leaving governments and the public vulnerable in the event of a future pandemic.

Zeem has been created to better protect those on the fringes of society who are not provided support from their government through current solutions. Our solution improves the overall track and trace system for the benefit of all in society. We do this by breaking the dependency on mobile devices and empowering governments to increase their track and trace solutions' coverage, effectiveness and deployment speeds. 

To understand our user's needs, we have completed user testing and commissioned a pilot with a UK bank to test and learn with the communities we are solving for. 

Zeem saves lives by making track and trace systems more inclusive, efficient and faster to deploy. Zeem is sold to governments and charged on a close to cost basis to ensure as many people as possible are protected by our technology. 

Zeem is designed to make track and trace solutions more inclusive by breaking the dependency on smartphones, this affords better protection to those in society who are either not privileged enough to have a smartphone or unable to use one if they did. It's these populations who are often the most vulnerable in a pandemic e.g. Silver Voice, a leading UK charity for senior citizens, found that 69% of its members had not downloaded the UK track and trace solution, with nearly 6 in 7 citing their mobile phone is too old. This is equivalent to roughly 10.6m people who cannot use the UK solution by default.

Whilst Zeem has the greatest positive impact in poorer, disabled and elderly communities it also benefits society as a whole, as the coverage of a track and trace solution is correlated with its ability to reduce onward transmission of infections.  

Modelling from the University of Oxford suggests that a digital track and trace solution with 15% coverage can reduce infection rates by 4-12% and deaths by 2-15% whereas a digital solution with 75% coverage can reduce infection rates by 56-81% and deaths by 52-78%. The delta between the two means that if Zeem deployed in tandem with the UK solution, it may have reduced infections by c1m and deaths by c14k.

We are starting our journey in the UK as this is our home region and the quickest market for us to deliver in. Once built however Zeem can be exported to any country that has a payment service (i.e. uses VISA, MasterCard, Amex etc.) and a financial sector. After delivering in the UK we expect to leverage the UK Governments Department for International Trade to export our technology internationally, we have already built the relationships needed within InnovateUK to unlock this opportunity when the time is right. 

Once deployed in a nation, our solution has the potential to provide track and trace coverage for the people that use payment technology (e.g. credit/debit cards, apple pay etc.), our impact will be greater in geographies where contactless or card-based transactions are the norm. It's estimated there are 1,000,000,000 card transactions every day globally, giving us the potential to help every single person making those transactions reduce their infection risk. 

We are currently measuring our impact by monitoring: 

• Volume of unique daily users 
• Volume of reported infections 
• Volume of infection alerts 

Bureaucracy – The fastest way for Zeem to achieve scale and success, at least in the UK, is to integrate with the three main UK retail banks, Barclays, NatWest Group and Lloyds Group. Banks' internal processes and naturally conservative compliance departments mean that deployment with them takes time, we are mitigating this risk through engagement with the FCA (the UK's financial regulator) and the ICO (the UK's data regulator). We have already signed a letter of intent with one bank.  

Future regulation – Zeem is working in a relatively new sector, digital track and trace, where limited regulation beyond GDPR is in place to restrict/control these systems' capabilities. It's highly likely that post-COVID, there will be a large-scale government review into the measures deployed and their effectiveness resulting in regulation and future change. Future regulation presents a risk but also an opportunity to create an economic moat if we can be first to market.

Longevity – Zeem is designed to support governments and businesses during a pandemic. Our core business model of providing improvements to the government's track and trace is threatened in non-pandemic periods. However, our movement prediction models' development will enable us outside of pandemic periods to provide services to business that will allow them to offer more personalised services to their customers based on predictive movements. 

Access to data – Zeem requires access to data on a mass scale to provide an effective solution. To address this we are growing our datasets, such as consuming loyalty scheme data to close these gaps and will continue to do so over time. 

No formal affiliations

We are applying to The Trinity Challenge to access social funding and the support needed to bring our innovation to market. In a short space of time, with a small team, we have proven our solution can be more effective than the status quo. It's more inclusive, resilient and faster to deploy. The Trinity Challenge aligns perfectly with our business ambition to make the world a better place and to achieve that with a solution that enables a better pandemic response, now and in the future. 

Being successful will accelerate the positive impact we can have on the world. 

We would like to partner with: 

• Google and/or Microsoft - to understand and leverage their cloud computing capabilities
• The University of Cambridge - to work with them and their world-leading epidemiologists to refine and improve the risk-based models that underpin our infection exposure calculations. 
• Mckinsey & Company - to work with them and their customer research teams to better understand the societal challenges with accepting a decentralised track and trace solution