WhatsTheStats

WhatsTheStats is a WhatsApp Bot service to enable people who are less fortunate in developing countries to get access to key stats about the Coronavirus situation.

Comment

Inspiration

In Singapore, the government provides daily updates on the Coronavirus through WhatsApp. I wanted to make this kind of service open to everyone. I also saw how some people

What it does

You can message any country name to find out the latest stats for that country. Additionally, you can message the bot “World” to get the most recent worldwide stats. This method provides access to this data with little to no data usage as it is text only. Additionally, it provides access to the data for people in low data areas. An area we didn’t get around to was providing who to call if you think you have the virus.

How I built it

We used an API that provided us with COVID19 Stats sourced from John Hopkins University. We used Twilio's Whatsapp API to build the messaging features and ran a hook callback with Node.js.

Challenges I ran into

A challenge we faced is that the Whatsapp environment was quite restrictive for developers. We also need to keep our app constantly online. Otherwise, it was a pretty straightforward project.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

This was my first time using Node.js and I'm proud of my ability to problem-solve.

What I learned

I learnt the basics of Node.js, APIs & Twilio.

What's next for WhatsTheStats

Up next would be to develop a support system for those who think they might have the infection.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates