An app for football fans became a digital contact tracing tool — and could be a litmus test for Covid-19 technology
Software engineer Tim Brookins didn’t build his Bison Tracker app with the coronavirus pandemic in mind. He was just looking for a fun way to chart the annual migration of fans from his home state of North Dakota to Texas for the national championship football game.
But in a surprising turn of events, the backbone of the Bison Tracker app has become one of the first digital contact tracing tools to be deployed on the state level — and Brookins is one of the lead engineers shepherding the effort.
