Equipped with a computer science and economics degree and driven by an urge to help, University of Toronto alumnus Zain Manji recently set out to see how quickly he could solve some of the confusion around COVID-19 vaccine availability.Just four hour
COVID-19: Toronto opens 17K vaccine appointments for week of May 10; Ontario reports 3,166 new cases
COVID-19: Toronto opens 17K vaccine appointments for week of May 10; Ontario reports 3,166 new cases
Ontario broke provincial vaccination records for the second consecutive day, with 144,724 doses administered in the past 24 hours By NOW Staff
Toronto opens new block of vaccine appointments for week of May 10
4:30 pm The city opened more than 17,000 new vaccine appointments across five city-run clinics for the week of May 10 due to additional supply.
The move means the city clinics can administer approximately 98,000 vaccine doses between May 10 and 16. Previously, appointments at city clinics had almost completely booked up through early June after the province expanded eligibility to all people 18 and up living in hot spots.
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Texting tool built by U of T alumnus helps Canadians find nearest vaccine clinic: Toronto Star Zain Manji, who studied computer science and economics at U of T, and business partner Ashish Yelekar built a text-based service to help Ontario residents find the nearest vaccine clinic (photo courtesy of Zain Manji)
Ontario residents can now find the nearest COVID-19 vaccine clinics by typing a short text message.
Inspired by a similar service in the United States,
Zain Manji and Ashish Yelekar, the founders of Lazer Technologies, developed a service that allows Ontarians to instantly receive a list of the three nearest vaccine clinics by texting their postal code to 1-833-356-1683, the
Offering to add another tool to the province’s fight against COVID-19, two Toronto-based engineers have created a SMS bases app to help Ontarians overcome some of the confusion that can come from finding a nearby location that offers vaccine appointments. Created in a matter of hours, the system has users send a message containing their postal code, replying immediately with a list of nearby locations offering the shot – along with their phone number, website and direction to the province’s list of COVID-19 vaccine locations.
Zain Manji is one of the minds behind the app, and co-founder of Lazer Technologies - a software studio of engineers dedicated to building digital products. After hearing of a similar service being rolled out by the White House to help Americans get vaccinated, Manji said he and a friend, Ashish Yelekar began asking themselves why such a service wasn’t available in Canada, or at least Ontario – and the steps that would be required to see it implemente
Volunteers create texting tool to help Ontarians find nearby vaccination sites
Texting the number will give you an instant reply with information on nearby vaccination sites
Two Toronto-based engineers have created a texting tool to help Ontarians find nearby vaccination clinics.
After seeing that a tool in the United States was allowing people to find nearby vaccination clinics through a text, Zain Manji and his friend Ashish Yelekar started developing a system for people in Ontario.
The two then had a texting system up and running within three hours.
Ashish and myself just created this same tool for Ontario, Canada