To help curb the rising number of Covid19 cases in the country, two alumni of the University of Santo Tomas developed a contact tracing system with a one-time registration for a QR code I.D.

Engr. Souichi Takahama and Andrea Pauline de Guzman recently launched Project B.E.A.T.R.I.C.E, which stands for “Buildings and Establishments Automated Temperature Reading Integrated Contact Tracing Equipment.”

“I started thinking of a way to fix this problem of people having to either write manually or scan a QR every time on their smartphones, having the door attendant of establishment to be exposed to people, and how to make digital contact tracing available to everyone may it be young or old, with internet or not, with smartphones or not,” Takahama said.

“We have this goal to implement this project to each and every establishment to provide a fast, reliable and efficient contact tracing for the safety and ease of the people entering establishments,” he added.

Project B.E.A.T.R.I.C.E will also address some contact tracing lapses such as incomplete forms, long queues in entrances, lack of centralized contact tracing solutions, and inaccessibility to smartphones and internet of some citizens.

“Compared to other contact tracing systems, Project B.E.A.T.R.I.C.E can complete entrance procedures in as fast as 5 seconds,” he said.

The two Thomasians partnered with EEnovatics under the Department of Science and Technology-TOMASinno Center for the project.