Life Goals: I Helped to Create an App to Fight Covid-19
In only two months, a small team created an app to help with Covid-19 Vaccination in Germany. Franciso Wanzeller was one of the OutSystems developers. These days, he’s been nothing but grateful for achieving a life goal: “I think technology should be used to improve people’s lives.”
A front-end developer in OutSystems at Alter Solutions Portugal, Francisco Wanzeller has been coding since he graduated in Multimedia Systems in 2014. And, four years after his developer career had started, he moved to low-code.
“I switched from traditional front end to OutSystems because I thought it made sense to change and learn a new technology after a few years of doing the traditional way, ” said Francisco.
He is one of the “rockstars” who helped a recruitment company in Germany to create, in only two months, a Vaccination Finder app, whose purpose is faster vaccination — for all — pro bono.
The developer knows the app’s success depends on several factors, such as its use by doctors (who provide vaccines), vaccination centers, and patients. But, the good cause is exciting. “The fact that I took part makes me proud, because, in reality, we’re creating an app that helps to fight Covid-19, and, personally, I think technology should be used to improve people’s lives, which is the case,” Francisco Wanzeller says.
The importance of citizenship among tech workers isn’t new. It comes out of an idea found in Joseph Pitt’s book Thinking About Technology (1999), — technology as “humanity at work”.
Engineers’ minds kind of think like scientists. According to the Engineering Ethics code of conduct, the profession of engineer should provide society with products, services, or values that are useful and worthwhile.
Francisco Wanzeller accomplished a life goal for so many of us — helping in Covid-19 crises — what makes sense next? “At the moment I like OutSystems, I don’t see myself changing for now. However, as a technology worker, I don’t like to close doors as long as they make sense at the time. The technology area is constantly changing and developing.”
The App Created With OutSystems
The Vaccination Finder app comes in handy as an increasing number of people in Germany aren’t able to reach their GPs for weeks.
In Germany, about 80,000 doctors spread across the territory provide free hours with their nurses. There are slots (two or three hours per day) where people can go and get vaccinated very close to their homes. The problem is that it is so spread out that it requires a logistic system to allocate people with the available times.
The Vaccination Finder app has already scheduled more than 1,000 vaccinations across Germany. Nearly 20,000 downloads on Android and 10,000 on Apple, and will continue to speed up the vaccination process.
“This is an example of how innovation really helps improve people’s lives and helps them to react to unforeseeable situations.”
Free OutSystems Licenses for a Good Cause
When the recruitment company came to OutSystems asking if they could help, Paulo Rosado, OutSystems’ CEO and founder had only one requirement: “Yes, we will do it but you need to make the code and the modules available to every other country in the world that would like to make something like this.” With that said, the OutSystems platform provided the organization with free licenses for development and IT infrastructure to run the application.
“It took eight weeks to build. It’s an extremely complex and sophisticated system. It’s a broker between citizens and doctors’ offices in Germany. This is an example of how innovation really helps improve people’s lives and helps them to react to unforeseeable situations. It’s a fantastic well-built app,” Paulo Rosado says.
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