Expat Finder

Thousands of expats are hiding to avoid quarantine and spreading Covid-19. This web app will help the local authority to find them and ensure quarantine with crowdsourced information.

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Inspiration

Around 3 hundred thousand expatriates came back to Bangladesh (News List) from Corona affected countries this month and a majority of them hid in the fear of being quarantined. They disbursed into almost all the districts and now possessing the high risk of coronavirus transmission. If we can quarantine the expatriates, we can highly reduce the chances of Covid-19 mass-transmission from them and this will be one of the highest impactful action for the 164.69 million people of Bangladesh.

What it does

This app allows anyone to post about expatriates in their locality.

  • They can post the way of communication (phone number, email) of the expatriates.
  • Location (house, road, area, district) of the expatriates.
  • The status (quarantined/not-quarantined) of the expatriates.
  • Country from where the expatriates came from.
  • Possible date of arrival of the expatriates.

This app also allows anyone to check the status of expatriates in their locality. They can also search for other locations.

  • Total number of expatriates.
  • The number of quarantined expatriates.
  • The number of not-quarantined expatriates.
  • Interactive maps representing the above 3 information.
  • Phone number of nearby law enforcement authorities.

Law Enforcement Authority can see interactive map including:

  • Name of the expatriates in a specific area.
  • Address/Location of the expatriates.
  • Way of communication of the expatriates.
  • Number of quarantined expatriates.
  • Number of not-quarantined expatriates.
  • Change of status of any expatriates in the searched area.

N.B.

  • Users can register with their email or local phone number. Both will be verified before the user gets the ability to post about expatriates. They also have to provide their National Identity number for verification.
  • No personal data of the expatriates are shown/provided to general users. That will only be provided to the law enforcement authority.
  • Alert will be sent to law enforcement authority automatically if any quarantined expatriates is reported violating quarantine rules.

How I built it

The web application backend is built on PHP. Data is stored in a MySQL database. The application will be hosted on a secure virtual private server. HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript will be used in the front-end.

Challenges I ran into

I came to know about this hackathon on 28th March. So time is the biggest challenge. Future challenges might include

  • Making people know about this app within the shortest possible time.
  • Making people signup and report expatriates in their locality to help the local law enforcement authority.
  • Making the data highly secured.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

UI is already done which looks beautiful and provides a better UX at the same time within this short timeframe. Achieved "Operational Planning Guidelines and COVID-19 Partners Platform to support country preparedness and response" certification from WHO.

What I learned

How to build a web application within the shortest timeframe at a national crisis moment.

What's next for Expat Finder

  • Emergency Groceries & Medicine supply for the expatriates from nearby users.
  • Create API Endpoint for data access from external applications.
  • Cross-platform mobile application.
  • SMS Verification Integration.
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Updates

posted an update —

According to the official press release, COVID-19 transmission has not reached community-transmission in Bangladesh. But all the reported COVID-19 cases are somehow related to expatriates. And the shocking news is among the 3 hundred thousand expatriates, only 55 thousand are in self-quarantine. Local law enforcement authority is trying hard to locate the missing expatriates but they are having a real hard time in that.

The fear is - if we can't locate them and quarantine within a very short time, we may face a situation like Italy or Spain as Bangladesh is a highly populated country with 164.69 million people.

To save these 164 million people, I wanted to help our local law enforcement authority through my tech experiences and expertise. As time is running out and the submission deadline for this hackathon is also very closed, I pinged two of my friends - Sumon Molla Selim and Afrin Firose to give me a hand and they jumped in without a second thought

And then we created this web application within 48 hours. We are still working on it and will continue working on it to make it better and better. We will also add more and more functionality to help as much as we can.

That is how the "Expat Covid Finder" app was created. I hope it will create a massive impact by making 164 million people in Bangladesh safer, a little more confident about our situation.

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