Inspiration
In the coming months and weeks, there are going to be a whole lot of people self quarantining alone, many of who could become very sick.
I recently received a message from a friend I know online. We play video games online with each other, that's about it though. He reached out to me because he was worried sick, and needed some reassurance. His name is Siad.
He's showing all of the symptoms of COVID-19 and has been ordered to self quarantine. He has severe asthma and is worried that he might go down hill too quickly to get himself help and was terrified at the idea of something happening to him and leaving his dog alone with no one to feed it.
So Siad asked me if I could check up on him everyday, and if I couldn't get in contact with him for more than a day to call 911 and see if I could find someone who could take care of his dog. That last part was an odd request.
Then I realized something about Siad... I didn't actually know if he had anyone to check up on him. He's an old guy who never had kids. His wife had passed away years prior. Besides myself, I don't actually know if he had anyone else to talk to.
I don't think Siad is the only person out there with no one to check in on them and most of all, I don't think anyone should be in that situation.
That's when Spoke came to mind. Spoke is an open source text-distribution tool for organizations to mobilize supporters and members into action. Spoke allows you to upload phone numbers, customize scripts and assign volunteers to communicate with supporters while allowing organizations to manage the process.
It's an application that I feel has much of the needed functionality. It also has a huge community behind it that is passionate about helping save lives in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This project is my attempt at building a tool from an existing open source solution that could potentially help thousands. If you are interested in helping in any way, please reach out!
What it does
CheckUpOn.Me provides a text-distribution and outreach tool for creating connections between volunteers and people who would like to be checked in on. During the COVID-19 pandemic our goal is to help where it's needed most by connecting people who might not have others to rely on with volunteers who will have their backs.
Our system allows us to to upload phone numbers, and other information, customize scripts and assign volunteers to communicate with people while allowing CheckUpOn.Me and it's directors to manage the process.
How I built it
The website is a simple HTML/CSS website currently. I will be switching it to a dynamic platform in the near future, as the website is purely informational right now. https://checkupon.me
The outreach application is powered by a modified version of the Open Source tool called Spoke(https://moveon.org/). Spoke is an open source text-distribution tool for organizations to mobilize supporters and members into action. Spoke allows you to upload phone numbers, customize scripts and assign volunteers to communicate with supporters while allowing organizations to manage the process.
It's an application that I feel has much of the needed functionality. It also has a huge community behind it that is passionate about helping save lives in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
People I'm looking for to join the team
I'm looking for people who are interested in helping me make this idea a reality. I myself have a background in Information Security, Site Reliability, and Python Development. I'm looking for anyone with the will to help, but especially people with development experience related to Spoke, Twilio, NodeJS and responsive web design.
And of course, we need people to check up on others using the app especially if they have public safety or healthcare experience.
Challenges I ran into
Funding. Since I'm still in the development phases, all hosting is provided out of pocket by me. From historical data obtained from the spoke project, operating Spoke can range in cost from $2,800/year for 10,000 conversations/month, to $24,000/year for 100,000 conversations/month.
The large portion of that bill is our VOIP service; Twilio. If a discount could be obtained with Twilio it would go a huge way.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
As this project is still in it's infancy, I can say that I'm proud of the quickness that I was able to mobile with other groups such as The Cure, The COVID Response Network, and The Progressive Coders Network and get this project started.
What I learned
As this was my first deployment of spoke, I learned a lot about how it works and how to modify it.
What's next for CheckUpOn.Me
While our current goal is to support the fight against COVID-19, our end goal is to help enable virtual civic collaboration for creating the cure for significant systemic risks to which adequate public and private solutions don't exist by rapidly creating and spreading global, community driven, open source solutions. The success of this project will likely lead to expanding the platform to support other worthwhile causes.
Built With
- html/css
- linux
- node.js
- postgresql
- spoke
- twilio
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