A BAHRAIN-BASED engineer has developed a Windows application that allows people in India to book slots for the Covid-19 vaccination.
Limnesh Augustine said he was inspired to take up the task after struggling to find a vaccine slot for his elderly parents in Kochi, Kerala.
He claims to have developed the ‘CowinSearchHelper’ app in five days, with 1,000 people signing up and several more from India, Dubai and other countries successfully booking slots.
“My parents are old, and it was difficult to book an appointment for Covid-19 jabs in Kochi because so many people are logged on to the website (cowin.gov.in) at the same time,” Mr Augustine told the GDN yesterday.
He explained that the Indian vaccine online booking system had a limit of 20 maximum searches and offered a five-minute window to register, with hundreds flooding the website every minute.
“The slots get booked so quickly,” he said.
The engineer staying in Bahrain since 2004 found that the Indian government published web APIs (Application Programming Interface). API is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other, and Mr Augustine said from the sets of APIs, one was public that helped them in filtering out the limitations.
He developed the Windows desktop application last month in C# programming language.
“I developed the application with no session limits, query and searches for slots available within five kilometres for people in India to select between the first or second dose of Covishield or Covaxin.
“The moment any slot is empty and uploaded in the system by hospitals or vaccination centres, it can be queried through the API and the user will be notified.
“Users have to enter their name, state (in India), District and Pincode, and the app searches in real time until a slot is spotted.”
The app can be used by people residing in India while those outside can opt for VPN to book slots.
Mr Augustine said the application does not store or transmit any information about the user to any website or entities.
“The complete source code can be downloaded from GitHub repository as I have published it as an open source.
“I don’t have any patents because I want Indian mobile application developers to make the best use of it,” he added.
Mr Augustine, 38 and his wife Jincy, an art educator, are international 3D artists and multiple Guinness Record holders. Their work has been featured in street painting festivals across the globe and they hold the Madonnari title from Italy.
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