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(KPIX 5) – A software engineer from East Bay has developed a free app that scours the websites of more than 20 healthcare providers in the Bay Area for open appointments for vaccines, immediately notifying them. users in real time.
Mukesh Aggarwal, Senior Security Engineer at Intuit, with over 20 years of industry experience, spent the last month building and refining the app. Aggarwal conceived the idea after spending some time trying to make an appointment for his elderly parents.
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“I thought if I, as a software engineer, if I had such a hard time finding dates for my parents, a normal person who is not good with computers or websites, how would I find they meet him? ” Aggarwal told KPIX 5.
Once an hour, Aggarwal’s app scans public and private healthcare providers, including Stanford, MyTurn, Walgreen’s, Rite Aid, and CVS, looking for open slots. The app then forwards the results to a focus group on Telegram called “Vaccine Notifications in the Bay Area”.
Full directions can be found here.
Users can adjust settings to receive notifications immediately. With more than 8,100 users and more and more, all open appointments are quickly taken into account. But when sites post larger date blocks, users will have a little more time to act.
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A brief check of the app at 8 a.m. on Tuesday revealed multiple slots at a clinic in Santa Clara, but the slots were gone within an hour.
Aggarwal visits the “Bay Area Vaccine Hunters” Facebook page every night to answer questions about the application. He spends around 3-4 hours per night testing all links to ensure the reliability and performance of the application. Saving lives has become “a passion,” he said, recalling how a woman used technology.
“She actually got 40 to 50 appointments for people in her community who aren’t tech savvy. It warms your heart that it’s worth it, ”Aggarwal said. “I think the greatest religion is to help others without expecting any return from it. So I, I believe that you do good people will do you good and that’s karma.
San Jose Planning Commissioner Rolando Bonilla first met Aggarwal via the Facebook page and asked the engineer to include East San Jose in the search results. East San Jose has one of the highest infection rates in the Bay Area. Bonilla said county and state governments need to do more to resolve the vaccine chaos.
“For me, Mukesh is a hero,” Bonilla told KPIX 5. “It’s time to rewrite the rules and aggressively partner with people like Mukesh in the private sector, to see how they can. actually help. Because they want to, they are ready to do it, but the counties have to open those doors to make it happen.
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Aggarwal says he will provide the code to any software engineer who wishes to launch a similar effort in his field.
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