A Metro Vancouver tech entrepreneur has launched a new website to help connect people stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic with those looking to help their neighbours pick up groceries or medicine.
Known as the COVID Connector, the simple database is meant to match people in the low-risk demographic with people nearby in a high-risk demographic. Anyone in the community can sign up by entering their name, email and postal code, with the simple form matching people with others nearby.
When someone connected to the database requests help, an automated email is sent out with contact details to nearby people who have indicated they’re willing to help. From that point on, it’s up to the two parties to sort out the next steps.
Anyone with an elderly relative in self-isolation can make themselves the point of contact and substitute their postal code for their relative’s.
“It makes a match and connects you with someone who can help in the geographic area,” said Samarth Chandola, who put his team to the task after several days of feeling like he needed to do something to help during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
In the past, Chandola has launched a dozen technology startups, including Openspot Technologies, which focuses on analyzing parking patterns and behaviours.
As someone who has long focused on leveraging technology to solve problems, Chandola said the COVID Connector is designed to scale at a global level. At the moment, it’s compatible with Canadian postal codes and U.S. zip codes but his team is working on adding addresses in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom over the next few days, as well as sharing the code with any developer around the world who wants to translate it.
On a personal level, Chandola hopes to bring the COVID Connector to India, where restaurants have already begun to shut down but where testing is less stringent than in countries like Canada. His family and the millions of people around them in New Delhi have begun to quarantine themselves, he said.
“I live very far from my own parents. They’re in the demographic at risk. But they have significant amount of family around them in New Delhi,” he said. “I just imagine people that don’t have that here.
“If this even helps one person out there who’s at risk from catching the virus that’s potentially fatal to them, it’s worth it.”
Chandola noted that, just like every other platform on the internet — and especially those that connect online communication with real-world action — there is a risk.
“We just believe during a time of crisis, they’ll be more good than bad,” he said.
Anyone who encounters problems is asked to reach out directly to the developers at the contact email listed on the COVID Connector page. Chandola also said they would be doing spot follow-ups to see how things are going.
—
Read more about COVID-19:
COVID-19: There's an app for that - thanks to Coquitlam man
Stuck home during the pandemic? Telus just offered Metro Vancouver unlimited data
