Fairwinds Announces Covid Watch as Winner of Its COVID-19 Hackathon

BOSTON, April 17, 2020 (Newswire.com) - ​Fairwinds, a Kubernetes enablement company, has run a joint COVID-19 Hackathon with its partners GitLab, Datadog and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Covid Watch was chosen as the winning submission based on the application’s potential to reduce the spread of COVID-19 without sacrificing consumer privacy rights. The Hackathon was created to encourage innovative thinkers to develop Kubernetes-based web applications to address the pandemic.

“We are really excited to have won the Covidhack.org Hackathon and to be able to leverage AWS, Datadog, GitLab and Fairwinds to have more resources available for our project going forward,” said Tina White, Executive Director of Covid Watch. “COVID-19 kept our team up at night as we watched it turn into a global pandemic. We worked very hard to develop an app that protects both public health and personal privacy and are eager to continue to advocate for the use of Covid Watch’s privacy-preserving technology to help people around the world.”

Hackathon submissions fit into one of four categories: reduce the spread of the virus, find a cure for COVID-19, educate the public on the virus or rebuild the economy. Covid Watch focuses on reducing the virus’ spread by using Bluetooth phone technology to trace contact of anonymous infected individuals to others who have been in physical proximity to them in recent days.  

Covid Watch has created noteworthy traction in its development but is still working to bring it to a point where the application can be widely adopted. Fairwinds, Datadog, AWS and GitLab will help to coordinate more development in a formalized way to further enhance the application, and then the resources required to ship and scale it. At this time, there is a significant need for experienced Android developers to provide assistance. Developers who can help can email [email protected] to learn more about how they can get involved.

“These are extraordinary times and our goal with the Hackathon was to find and support an idea that will make an impact. Covid Watch’s project was selected because the judges collectively felt that it could solve a problem that isn’t yet being solved and that the resources the sponsoring companies are providing could help it come to fruition,” said Bill Ledingham, CEO of Fairwinds. “We are impressed that so many talented people contributed ideas, and we encourage all of them to continue pressing for a solution. We are also grateful to our partners Datadog, Amazon Web Services and GitLab for their continued support on this project. Together, all of us can contribute to the greater good.”

Judges from Fairwinds and its partner companies evaluated and scored projects according to a defined judging rubric that considered the project feasibility, existing idea competition and the impact of the project. Sponsoring companies will provide the following for Covid Watch and its winning entry: 

• AWS will be offering six months of application hosting support*
• GitLab will be where the project lives
• Datadog will be offering free monitoring for six months*
• Fairwinds will be offering free Kubernetes managed services for six months*​

  * Timeframes may adjust depending on variables of winning project.

Hackathon ideas were gathered from March 31, 2020, through April 10, 2020. During that time, more than 30 ideas were submitted and evaluated by sponsoring judges.

About Fairwinds 

Fairwinds provides a Kubernetes enablement platform for innovative development teams. Offerings include ClusterOps, a 24x7 managed service to extend teams; ClusterOps Advisory to supplement a team’s expertise; and Fairwinds Insights, subscription software for protecting and optimizing mission-critical applications. Fairwinds enables organizations to run secure, efficient and reliable Kubernetes infrastructure.

The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and provides a fully remote and distributed work environment. Visit www.fairwinds.com for more information.

Source: Fairwinds