LIST demonstrates collaborative COVID-19 “Cross-Functional Dashboard” to ministers

Published on 03/08/2020

Two ministers from the Luxembourg government visited Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) on Monday. Their motive was an inspection and demonstration of the “Cross-Functional Dashboard”, in relation to the country’s COVID-19 data, which runs on the Institute’s Visual Wall (VisWall), a mosaic of 24 high-resolution 46-inch touch screens spanning seven metres.

Economy Minister Franz Fayot and Minister of Higher Education and Research Claude Meisch, took a two-hour tour of the LIST facility in Belvaux, to see the VisWall and dashboard in action for several demonstrations.

The Ministers were joined on Monday by representatives from several organisations that supply and share data feeding into the dashboard; Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and Luxinnovation.

After an initial welcome by the CEO of LIST Thomas Kallstenius, the guest were shown presentations demonstrating what the collaboration between the organisations has managed to achieve up to the present time, in Luxembourg’s fight against COVID-19.

LISER’s social-economic model was demonstrated on the VisWall as well as data for infection, recovery and hospital occupation relating to COVID-19 infections.

Other perspectives of the dashboard were shown such as “Digital Twin.” This is part of dashboard that can be connected to remote sensors located in buildings around the country, and send data back to the dashboard in real time.

As an example of real time data processing, live motorway traffic camera footage from around Luxembourg was shown on the VisWall and it was demonstrated how, by manipulating a map, it was possible to view and interact with the videos.

In these difficult times, resilience is key and a systemic crisis like COVID-19 has shown that being resilient is a multi-faceted challenge.

The Cross-Functional Dashboard is a step forward in the direction of providing a more comprehensive overview of a complex situation to decision-makers. It is also a strategic tool for researchers to build, improve and assess the models on which their recommendations to these decision-makers are based.

“Composed of data from a multitude of specific areas, the Cross-Functional Dashboard provides an overview with which policy makers can rely on to manage the health crisis and therefore limit its economic and social consequences. This tool therefore testifies to the existing skills within the Luxembourg research community that allow us to rigorously combat the COVID-19 pandemic", said Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot following the visit.

There are still many further steps to take to include for instance more artificial intelligence in the system but the Cross-Functional Dashboard shows that by joining their forces Luxembourg institutions have the capacity to be at the forefront to further increase the resilience of the country.

“This dashboard is one of the examples of the excellent collaboration between public research players, a collaboration that I can only encourage and which has enabled public research to effectively support the government within the framework of the management of this health crisis,” said Claude Meisch, Minister of Higher Education and Research.

Thomas Kallstenius concluded, “It’s indeed important to emphasise collaborative spirit of this effort by all the research and innovation actors in Luxembourg.  Our joint ambition is to develop the integrated dashboard, and the data analytics engine behind it, to support the decision makers and policy makers during the covid19 pandemic but also to position the Luxembourg as blueprint for a digital, sustainable and resilient economy in a post-COVID-19 crisis world”.

LIST's VisWall team are: 

Supervisor - Benoit Otjacques

Development team:

Joan Baixauli
Louis Deladiennee
Mohammad Ghoniem
Patrick Gratz
Johannes Hermen
Mickaël Stefas
Luc Vandenabeele

IT Support:

Effective support from IT services received from:

Hugues Henriot
José Brignoli
Nicolas Zirn
Xavier Detro
David Soares
Stéphane Plehiers

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