Getty ImagesBENGALURU: A clutch of top executives from startups have built a web-based app CovidMaps to help find information about stores in your neighborhood from where you can get your essentials.
CovidMaps.in lists details around when a store is open, what items are available and how much, safety precautions being observed, crowding, wait-times to help people get their essentials in a safe way. This data is crowdsourced and is updated real-time basis user contributions.
“While normally one would rely on Google Maps, or own knowledge, they aren't as effective in these times as the status quo has changed with stores operating in a different time window and the stock availability having fluctuations. People are also concerned about safety precautions at stores as well as crowding,” said Sanjeev Rao, co-founder, CovidMaps, said.
The company hit about 2000 users within 2 days of launching the app and currently have submissions of over 100 stores across two cities. “We also see 30% of our daily traffic is repeat users and users are contributing to help each other in a big way,” said Phani Kishan, Core Team Member, CovidMaps, said.
The companies focus cities are Vancouver and Bangalore right now, given the volunteers themselves come from there, but are looking to expand to other cities soon. CovidMaps is a volunteer-led not for profit project with members contributing from around the globe including Vancouver, San Francisco and Bangalore.
“CovidMaps is a platform that has global applicability. Whether in Vancouver or in Bangalore we are observing similar behavior from users. There is also a strong social responsibility being displayed by users who are promoting the web page on their own to friends, family and office groups,” said Arjun Attam, Core Team Member, CovidMaps.
CovidMaps.in lists details around when a store is open, what items are available and how much, safety precautions being observed, crowding, wait-times to help people get their essentials in a safe way. This data is crowdsourced and is updated real-time basis user contributions.
“While normally one would rely on Google Maps, or own knowledge, they aren't as effective in these times as the status quo has changed with stores operating in a different time window and the stock availability having fluctuations. People are also concerned about safety precautions at stores as well as crowding,” said Sanjeev Rao, co-founder, CovidMaps, said.
The company hit about 2000 users within 2 days of launching the app and currently have submissions of over 100 stores across two cities. “We also see 30% of our daily traffic is repeat users and users are contributing to help each other in a big way,” said Phani Kishan, Core Team Member, CovidMaps, said.
The companies focus cities are Vancouver and Bangalore right now, given the volunteers themselves come from there, but are looking to expand to other cities soon. CovidMaps is a volunteer-led not for profit project with members contributing from around the globe including Vancouver, San Francisco and Bangalore.
“CovidMaps is a platform that has global applicability. Whether in Vancouver or in Bangalore we are observing similar behavior from users. There is also a strong social responsibility being displayed by users who are promoting the web page on their own to friends, family and office groups,” said Arjun Attam, Core Team Member, CovidMaps.
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