Elena Key / Staff Writer
There are apps that deliver food to you and others that help meet people but now, there’s an app that helps you fight against COVID-19.
Eric Azcona is a senior at FIU who created an app called PointeGenie, which helps users find nearby COVID-19 testing or vaccination sites in Florida.
“The biggest challenge was to put everything together and actually testing it,” said Azcona, who majors in information technology.
Screenshot from PointeGenie app. Elena Key / PantherNOW.
Azcona was inspired to create the app after hearing one of President Joe Biden’s speeches urging the population to get vaccinated. He created it in only five weeks with the help of two developers, Kranthi Yadav and Akash Jindal.
Yadav, co-founder of the company PointGiene, and Jindal, an employee, are based in India and work remotely with Azcona. This dynamic has been working this way for over a decade.
By the third week of development, testing of the app was done in real-life by leaving the simulator.
“We’re providing the solution that is specifically for vaccinations and testing centers,” said Azcona. “I decided to stop what I was doing and say let me use these resources that I have, [and] let me help the people because I saw that there were a lot of people struggling right now to find the testing and vaccination centers.”
He is a 41 year-old Dominican native who came to Florida in 2017. Azcona is the founder of the company PointeGiene that aims to help the Latino community fight COVID-19 through the recent app.
Regardless of not receiving financial reimbursement through the app, Azcona was determined to help those in need, “….That’s how I decided to put my resources to do the vaccination and testing centers specifically to help the Latino community [since] they are the ones that are more limited in resources and information,” he said.
In Miami, Florida 11.3 percent of Hispanics have no internet access, which is greater than the 9.3 percent of Hispanics without access in the United States according to FIU’s Jorge M. Perez Metropolitan Center 2020 study.
Under The Affordable Care Act, which has narrowed racial gaps in access to healthcare, Latinos are still facing nearly three times more likely to be uninsured than non-Hispanic whites, according to a 2020 study conducted by Brookings, a non-profit which conducts in-depth research leading to innovative ways of solving problems in society.
Currently, the app only works in Florida because of states having their own databases. PointeGenie must connect with them in order to access the information.
Azcona’s team used the Florida Department of Health’s data to find the locations of sites, their names, and phone numbers. They downloaded and inserted all of the information manually because they couldn’t transfer the data.
Although technology makes the app possible, it’s powered by the people who download it. Users can report the status and crowd level on the app by using a traffic light system feature showing the location of the site.
“Everyone can be a hero, and help other people save time,” said Azcona.
Azcona gave an example that if a place has a 30-minute waiting time, it would be reported as yellow.
“You have three colors, red, yellow, and green. You report the status of the place based on that color.”
The app can also report the crowd level with the measurement of bars; small, medium, and large.
“The app uses the consumers’ real-time location to pinpoint, explore, and connect with the surroundings,” said Azcona.
Users are also able to book appointments directly from the app.
PointeGenie is currently only available on IOS but is still constantly evolving. The app will eventually be available in Spanish and for Android devices.
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