Congratulations Alex Vedernikov, Hack for Better Days winner!

AURIN Outreach Manager, Su-lin Lim, recently spoke with Dr Alex Vedernikov, winner of HERE Technologies #HackForBetterDays Build a Map challenge.

For his winning entry, Alex combined cleaned, spatialised data from AURIN[1] with other data, to create a dramatic and telling visualisation of Australian’s access to COVID-19 testing centres and hospitals where testing might be carried out in the absence of a nearby testing centre.

The orange areas (polygons) of the map represent the areas of Australia that are within a fifteen-minute drive of the nearest testing centre. This reveals dramatic differences across Australian towns, cities and regional areas.

Alex suggested his map could be used to investigate access to COVID-19 testing centres more fully, by adding additional travel time data, such as 30 minutes or 60 minutes.

The map might also be combined with additional AURIN data to visualise and investigate related questions, such as:

• Overlaying population data to show where centres are most needed; or
• Overlaying demographic data, such as age, to show where communities might be more vulnerable to COVID-19 and need more health services to cope

Alex is a long-term user of AURIN, having first encountered it as a PhD student, and now a data scientist with an interest in transport research. Su-lin wondered if AURIN transport data could also be used to investigate the spread of COVID-19.

Su-lin and the AURIN team would like to congratulate Alex and invite you to investigate these possibilities.