Mysore/Mysuru: As Mysuru battles with the second wave of the Novel Coronavirus, there are many who need information about the virus, way to combat it, the steps taken by the District and State to mitigate the impact of the contagion, real-time updates about the number of cases in Mysuru, recovered patients and also deaths. 

While there are hardly any websites that give authentic information with latest data, a group of young and bubbling students have developed a web portal that collects and displays COVID resources and information in a structured manner. Web portals like these help the infected affected people and their families get authentic and verified information.

It has become popular too as within a week of the portal going live, it has got nearly 10,000 page views and the elated students are on Cloud-9 as their idea — that was conceptualised and given a shape overnight — has clicked. 

The brain behind 

The bunch of enthusiastic students is from Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering (VVCE), Mysuru. They have fruitfully utilised the lockdown period and connected with each other virtually to develop https://svasthmysuru.com/ a must visit to all those who hail from Mysuru and are concerned about the city’s battle against the killer virus. 

The students, S. Sheethal, Ganya Janardhan, Sanjana Srinath, Sushma Ganesh, S. Vishruth, G. Yogesh, were led by S. Mohan Kumar who works in a corporate company and a former student of VVCE. While Ganya and Vishruth are from Computer Science Engineering stream, Sheethal, Sushma Ganesh and Sanjana Srinath are from Information Science Engineering, Yogesh is from Electronics and Communications Engineering stream — their junior.

It was Mohan Kumar who anchored the project, Ganya told Star of Mysore. 

“Swasth means healthy and COVID has forced all of us to follow a healthy lifestyle. We wanted Mysuru to be healthy and that is why we coined the word Swasth-Mysuru,” she said. 

Calling their initiative ‘Techlance Software’, a start-up, the students, along with Mohan Kumar put together their expertise in web development and came up with a website where everyone can access the information at their fingertips. They took seven days to complete the website.  

Midnight virtual session

“Ten days back we connected virtually in the evening sipping a cup of coffee and discussed the plan of action to develop an informative COVID portal. We conceptualised and decided to end the conversation after sometime. The same night, we were so excited and many of us could not sleep and we spent the dark hours contemplating on the name. We were on Google Meet and suddenly one of us proposed the name Swasth-Mysuru and that clicked. Now we are receiving a lot of response and accolades for that catchy name,” Ganya recalled the team’s midnight virtual meet.  

Hunt for real-time data

The website provides accurate data and is updated twice daily. Apart from the students, there are volunteers who manage the interactive section of the website where chats are responded to, 24×7. “We are ready to update data real-time, every two hours if we get data. We are coordinating with district officials and other voluntary service portals for this,” she said. 

The youngsters are already a part of a volunteer group called Mysuru District Digital Platform for COVID-19 Assistance where they help the district in creating posters, informative videos and education materials to be disseminated to the public. The information shared on this website is verified by this team before publishing it. Most of the data or the information is sourced from District COVID War Room. 

This project is supported by Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri and guided by her at times when important information is uploaded on the website. Deputy Director of Libraries B. Manjunath, who is the War Room in-Charge, helps the students to get information from the district portals. For more details, visit www.svasthmysuru.com

The website provides information about bed availability, a Helpline for Remdesivir, oxygen status and other Helplines, free medicine suppliers in Mysuru, food distributors for the needy and isolated patients, plasma donation drive and other pieces of information like NGOs working on the field to provide oxygen and ambulance support. It also has information on blood banks, burials and cremations. Citizens can even use this website for locating COVID testing centres, isolation centres and free vaccination centres.