Bhopal: ‘Corona Warrior’, an app developed by a 16-year-old city lad has been short-listed for award by the International COVID-19 Congress (ICC-2020). The meet will be organised in Bangladesh on August 9-10 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a US-based international organisation of scientists, engineers and doctors.
The IEEE, the world’s biggest professional organisation, was established way back in 1884.
“I may win the award or I may not but it is great that my project has been short-listed,” Pratham Nayak, the creator of the app, told Free Press. He will make online presentation of his app before the Congress delegates on August 10.
His father, Amar Nayak, a software professional, is elated. “It is probably for the first time that a school student’s project is being considered for the award,” he said. His father had submitted his son’s app for consideration. “I think Pratham’s app is the only entry from Madhya Pradesh to be short-listed”, his father said.
Pratham said he decided to develop the app when he found the Government of India’s Aarogya Setu lacking a few aspects.
He said that he used Android Studio and Java and XML programming language for developing the app. It took him about 10-12 days to complete the work.
Pratham claimed that his app is better than Aarogya Setu as it contains much more detailed information about the symptoms, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 than the official app. It also includes health tips for users.
He said that to make sure that all the information in the app is authentic and credible, he has taken the relevant data only from the websites of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Ayush Ministry.
Using an API, the app provides the users the number of active cases, recovered cases, critical cases, today/total cases, and today/total Deaths for all states and districts in India, besides consolidated figures for other countries. It also generates graphical reports on active, confirmed and recovered cases and deaths cases on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
The Aarogya Setu App updates the data only once in every 24 hours – at 10 am every day - while Pratham’s app refreshes the figures every two-three hours.
His father had taught Java to him when he was in class eight. “I am waiting for the necessary permission from the Government of India for placing the app on Google Play Store,” he said.
