Conférence : Guillaume Rozier – What role for open data during the pandemic?

Important: Due to an unexpected event, the conference must be shifted by one day. It will take place Thursday, May 6th at 7 p.m.

Hello everyone.

For almost a year, the CovidTracker website has become the reference in monitoring the progression of the pandemic. From open data accessible to all, Guillaume Rozier, a young data-scientist, and his team of volunteers, have been tracking the figures of the epidemic every day through curves and graphs. The platform, which was intended to be confidential, has become a primary source of information not only for the general public, but also for institutions, be they ministries or hospitals. And in less than a year, it has become a real public utility tool, taking precedence over official communication.

Guillaume Rozier is a data scientist, specialized in bio-medical. As early as March 2020, when no one was really aware of the extent of this mysterious “Chinese virus”, the Télécom Nancy student looked at the figures of the pandemic, made available online by the American university Johns-Hopkins, and started to tweak some graphs for his relatives. A few tweets and weeks of lockdown later, the CovidTracker platform was born. In January 2021, when the French Health minister Olivier Véran reached him to propose that his ministry transmit to him - as a privilege - the figures of vaccination, Guillaume Rozier was opposed: the data must be accessible to all, not to a few people. A “fight for open data”, as he puts it.

Guillaume Rozier will discuss the use of open data as a public good in times of pandemic, its strengths and limitations, and will comment on the technical aspects of CovidTracker.

The conference will take place on Thursday, May 6th at 7:00 pm on bbb.42l.fr.

You can join the conference even if you are not a student at 42 by going to the above address at the date and time indicated.

This conference can be watched on our PeerTube channel.

See you soon,

Claire