Outbreak Risk Response Ecosystem [ORRE]

There are two main hindrances to prevent the next outbreak

1. We do not have a global ecosystem to prevent, detect, control and treat outbreaks.

2. The sporadic solutions that we currently have to mitigate the outbreak challenge are not scaled up to every nook and corner of the world.

Here's our solution:

1. Determine what is needed to prevent, detect, control and treat the next outbreak.

2. Search for the existing tools and system that are in effectively in use in any part of the world

3. Team up with local communities to roll out those tools and systems in the rest of the world using a sustainable business model.

4. For the gaps against the requirements that are not met by any existing tools and system, propose new R&D projects with universities and startup communities.

The solution has a high potential to avoid future pandemics, loss of lives, economic contraction and related job losses.

1. We do not have a global ecosystem to prevent, detect, control and treat outbreaks.

2. The sporadic solutions that we currently have to mitigate the outbreak challenge are not scaled up to every nook and corner of the world.

For example, a range of tried and tested public health solutions working in one part of the world are not rolled out to the other parts of the world where they are badly needed.

TB is curable and preventable, if detected early. TB is a major health problem in Pakistan where of 220 million people, almost 400,000 cases of TB (20% below 15 YO) are reported each year. Similarly, there are other diseases like HIV, Polio, breast cancer etc. which are preventable with early detection.

Open source tools and systems like the low tech hotlines from InSTEDD have been successfully used in some countries like Cambodia and Argentina for over a decade, which could also be rolled out in other developing countries like Pakistan to significantly reduce the incidence of infectious diseases by early detection. Unfortunately, even after a decade, a vast majority of the health care workers and their communities in Pakistan do not have access to those tools.

Co-create and run an outbreak risk  response ecosystem that can prevent, detect, control and treat future outbreaks. 

it involves carrying out the following steps in a continuous loop:

1. Explore and assess risks and opportunities hindering or leading to prevent, detect, control and treat future outbreaks

2. Research available tools and systems that can help mitigate and manage the risks and opportunities. 

3. Build local communities and team up to pilot rollouts of the available responses to the relevant risks and opportunities

4. Make local and global ecosystems based on an economically sustainable business model to scale up the tested solutions.e.g. through indemnity clubs or global medical insurance with support from World Health Organisation and other institutions to subsidize the insurance premium for those communities with limited affordability.

5. For the gaps, propose R&D projects to universities and startup networks, find them partners or collaborators and help them manage the project.

6. Once a new tool or system becomes available, repeat steps from 3 to 5 above.

We have chosen Pakistan as our first country to roll out our solutions. 

The specific tool that we have picked up to roll out first as part of our end to end holistic solution to build an ecosystem to prevent, detect, control and treat future outbreaks is a low-tech based cell phone solution which digitizes the communication process between the “patient” or “end user” and the healthcare professional. A HOTLINE is proposed to be set up which can be reached by dialing a toll-free number and a numeric or voice message to the HOTLINE can communicate the nature of the problem. The health care professionals can then call back the “end-user” to gain immediate access and ascertain the nature of the issue. This broadens the reach of the healthcare program very significantly and also overcomes the low literacy issues. In Pakistan, there are only 170,000 doctors for the 220 million population and less than 200,000 community health workers. This low-tech solution will enable significantly enhanced reach and access for the health care professionals and end-users respectively. It thus empowers the under-privileged and under-served.

Pakistan, a country of 220 million people with one of the lowest per capita income in world and that has been hit hard during COVID 19 by loss of jobs and millions more falling below the poverty line and country where as many as 67 out of every 1000 babies do not see their 5th birthday, is our target community to roll out the proposed solutions.     

The MIT Solve community is looking for technology-based solutions that protect all people—especially those most under-served and at risk because of their race, ethnicity, age, gender, or income—from the impacts of disease outbreaks.

This is exactly what the proposed Outbreak Risk Response Ecosystem solution is supposed to address. We are working on making an ecosystem to roll out technology based existing solutions to under-served communities and initiating new R&D projects to promote innovation for the gaps.

In addition, our proposed solution is a subset of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal # 3 Good Health and Well-being and #17 Partnership for the Goals.   

The tool we are seeking to deploy has been tested and is well established in Cambodia since 2009, and then in Argentina. We are now looking to pilot this in Pakistan. We are in contact with relevant organizations (Hospitals with outreach programs and NGOs) in Pakistan to pilot this with 500 last-mile primary healthcare workers.

The reason why we have selected the pilot stage and not the growth stage is because it is our first country to experiment a rollout project. The tool itself has been used in more than one country for over a decade and with this rollout, it may be considered at the growth stage.

The process we are using to build an ecosystem to rollout and scale tested solutions is widely tested and proven in the corporate world. More details on this is given in the "theory of change" section below

Co-creation and co-sharing equitably is what makes us different from other open source or community based building platforms where individual contributions are not measured and contributors are not fairly rewarded. The equitable mechanism of our co-creators network provides an enormous strength and power to co-create solutions to global problems through global and diverse teams of strangers. 

In addition, our structured online program with a built-in governance and controls framework is capable of stopping things from going wrong proactively and provide interoperability and continuity to projects even when team members have to abandon projects in the middle for their personal reasons.

We are working on a range of solutions to co-create a holistic end to end ecosystem to prevent, detect, control and treat the next outbreaks.

One of the target systems we are evaluating to pilot roll out in our target communities is already working for a decade in Cambodia and Argentina with millions of users. 

Our plan is to roll out the solutions in South Asian countries in the next 5 year having more than 1.5 billion population.  

Our next 12 months target includes to deliver a pilot roll out of 10 solutions in Pakistan, a country of 220 million people.

1. We have a structured program embedded in our online platform with built in workflow and progress monitoring mechanism resourced by a PMO team. 

2. We have project KPIs and goals defined in measurable terms as explained in one of the selections above.

There are two the core members in our team for this project

Wadud Mughal, and 

Ayaz Bokhari

We have access to more than 800 registered members in our network and many existing and potential collaborators from the grass root communities we are targeting.  

Our projects are resourced through engagement with network members and 3rd party goods and service providers based on EoI (Expression of Interest), RFI (Request for Information), RFP (Request for Proposal), RFQ (Request for Quotation) and independent consulting domain experts.

We believe one of the most workable ways to prevent, detect, control and treat the next outbreaks is to co-create a holistic end to end economically sustainable ecosystem both at local and global level. 

1. We being a team of venture builders resourced with domain experts of decades of experience in the multinational corporate world at a global platform of social innovators and entrepreneurs are best placed to build such an ecosystem.

Our business principles and values provide the foundation to our decision making process. We are therefore bound by those principles to be diverse and inclusive and make teams purely on merit basis. 

Please visit the link below to learn more about our vision, mission and values

MIT SOLVE can help us in two ways:

1. connect with the global institutions that are interested in co-creating ORRE with us

2. reward money that can help bridge the cash flow gap needed to meet our 2021 rollout targets.

We need help in connecting with the players in the public health systems to reach to a bigger user communities 

We need help in funding those R&D projects that we identify through our problem-solution fit assessment for breakthrough innovations.

To reach out a wider community:  

United Nations 

World Health Organisation

World Bank

Asian Development Banks 

Local Public Health Systems

For R&D projects:

MIT and other universities 

Global Pharmaceutical Corporations

1. Even though our preferred region to roll out the ecosystem is South Asia, the dream of preventing future outbreaks can not be materialized until ORRE is rolled out worldwide. 

2. We will use Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Prize money to build communities in the US to roll out solutions that help prevent, detect, control and treat future outbreaks in the country, if we are awarded this prize.

1. Our preferred region to roll out the ecosystem is South Asia, the dream of preventing future outbreaks can not be materialized until ORRE is rolled out reach every nook and corner worldwide and include all communities without any discrimination. 

2. If we are awarded this prize, we will use The Andan Prize money to reach out to refugee communities in Pakistan and Bangladesh to roll out innovative solutions that can help them progress economically and financially by finding a role in ORRE.

1. Even though the scope of the rollout includes all diverse communities, the goal of preventing future outbreaks can not be materialized until ORRE is rolled out to women communities in particular.

2. We will use the Innovation for Women Prize money to build women communities to roll out innovative solutions if we are awarded this prize.

1. The holistic end to end ORRE at both local and global level can not be delivered with the big data and AI based most modern tools capable of identifying risk and opportunities in real time and to support timely actions and decisions through deep and meaningful analysis of the huge data.

2. We therefore believe that ORRE project qualifies for the The AI for Humanity Prize.

The goal of the proposed ORRE can not be achieved without an embedded system to "support community health workers and service users at the last mile in reporting the availability and stock-outs of essential medicines and related commodities, ensuring life-saving health products are available and accessible at health facilities (with a key focus on HIV, TB & malaria within the COVID-19 context)"

For that reason, we believe that the proposed ORRE does qualify for the Global Fund Prize. This will help greatly in developing and advancing the intended solution.