Enormous Mom got the idea for his much-needed vaccination finding system after discovering how complicated it was to book one for his mom.
“You basically had to open three tabs, one for each major government vaccine portal, and then refresh all day until you got an appointment,” said the 31-year-old software engineer from New York.
Inspired to see if there is anything he can build himself to help the thousands of New Yorkers pick up, he decides to take a look under the hood in January. Two weekends of coding later, he created TurboVax – a bot that finds available appointments in 53 different New York cities and state vaccines and shares it on Twitter and on a website. It only cost $ 50 to set up.
Today, the site gets more than one million pages a day. To date, he estimates, tens of thousands of people have secured the appointment of vaccines using the bot, which has more than 80,000 followers on Twitter, and Mom has been inundated with messages of thanks. He also asked requests from people to bring TurboVax to their city or state.
“The response has been unbelievably overwhelming,” he said. “There was so much gratitude. Hundreds and thousands of emails from people who got appointments through TurboVax, which honestly are also just thoughtful and humble. ”
The value of his creation surprised Mom. “I would never have thought I could build something that has such a tangible impact on the lives of others.”
But it also puts a lot of pressure – especially for something that started as a side project. He runs the service in his spare time from his day job at Airbnb. Meanwhile, the site, built on Google Docs, is growing under so much demand.
‘Technically, it’s a kind of hack. It is not built in such a way that modern websites have to be built, ”says Ma, who is a big fan of the Knicks, Tottenham and Bridgerton outside of work.
But he added: “These are the shortcuts we are taking to place something in the world that we think is useful, and I think that is a consideration I would still make.”
TurboVax is one of several citizen-led services gained to help Americans navigate the vaccination discussion process, including the NYC Vaccine List in New York and VaccinateCA in California.
In the long run, Mom is still working out what her next steps are. “There is a great need for such instruments. But I’m just one developer who did a side project that went viral. ”
Amid the chaos and uncertainty of the vaccination, the TurboVax Twitter stream has become a community center for New Yorkers trying to get appointments and people trying to help each other. It also shares waiting times and other vaccine-related news (as well as some Knicks content). It’s full of thankful messages, personal stories and photos of people getting their vaccinations.
‘At the vaccination site yesterday, at least 3 of the 7 people in the waiting room told me that they were there because of you. Thank you for helping us get vaccinated! ” wrote a user. Another said: “Enormous representation of what’s great about New York”.
But Mom, who grew up in Queens and lives in Manhattan, also had to deliver frustrating messages – especially if there were fewer vaccine appointments available.
The service is free, but Mom encourages users to donate to Welcome to Chinatown, an organization that supports small businesses in the area and fights racism against Asian Americans. So far, he has raised more than $ 53,000.
Incidents of anti-Asian hatred and violence increased in the city last year, the Asian American Bar Association reported, and in recent weeks, violent attacks on Asian Americans have taken place in New York and across the United States.
“Asian Americans have always had to prove themselves as Americans, and that’s a burden we carry everywhere … the attacks that have really increased in the last few months, especially on the elderly and Asian businesses, are extremely discouraging,” Ma said.
He added: “While I have this platform, as an Asian American I can do more than expected and highlight a group and an environment that needs to change.”
The distribution of vaccines has been scrutinized in New York and the United States because the vaccination rate of white Americans is much higher than that of black and Latino Americans.
Ma believes TurboVax is helping to level the playing field when it comes to vaccine distribution by making it easier to find out where it’s available, but that a better government policy and more offline is needed.
“Not everyone has the ability to sit in front of a computer all day and refresh,” he said. That said, I know no system is perfect. This technology can help, but it can not solve other inequalities in the system. ”
After nearly a month of trying on the official websites, Gustavo Ajche (38), who as a food delivery programmer is always on the go on his electric bike, managed to make an appointment with TurboVax this week and he ‘ vaccinated a few days later.
But he still faced important obstacles. The only appointment was so far from his home that he had to pay $ 50 to get a taxi there, and he said there was a lot of fear and misinformation circulating.
‘Even when I got my appointment, people were like’ oh, you’re crazy, why are you going to do this? It’s not safe, ‘says Ajche, who is also a leader of the Los Deliveristas Unidos delivery group. “I know how important it is not only to be vaccinated because I do delivery work, but also because I volunteer at the Workers Justice Project which manages food pantries and I get in touch with a lot of people.”