Public health systems often struggle to connect data across agencies and systems — leaving some communities without the insights they need to allocate resources optimally or to take action in the face of emerging epidemics. Online maps and collected data showing how the new coronavirus spread across South Korea helped people avoid the potentially fatal virus.
For example, the Corona Map was built on AWS by Mr. Dong-hoon Lee, a student developer at Kyunghee University and co-founder of Modoc, a mobile app for hair-loss self-diagnosis. He wanted to share transparent information about spreading the virus with his programming skills. The site shows the latest figures and movements of confirmed and suspected cases gathering government data and news articles. It shows colored-circles and lines that indicate the movements of people who have been diagnosed with the virus for others to avoid potential risks.
This site launched on January 30 when the country had only six confirmed cases, which has attracted nearly 8 million visits in the first five days of its launch. AWS Korea decided to cover his AWS cloud costs to support public health in the country. The site accumulated over 37 million views by March 23.
Screenshots of CoronaMap and Corona NearBy web site
The Corona Nearby built on AWS also became a popular site developed by four students who did not major in computer science at Korea University. It allows users to enter their location and see affected venues in the vicinity and see the information of hospitals and health centers that potential patients can visit.
Recalling the pandemic of Middle East respiratory syndrome(MERS) in 2015, a massive outbreak occurred in South Korea. Many people panicked due to a lack of information. MERSMap built by student developers on AWS played a crucial role to share user-friendly information. MERSMap attracted 5 million users and aggregated 340 reports linking to government sites and other resources.
The developers of these three sites share one thing in common beyond providing public health information: they all learned coding skills through a nationwide nonprofit programming club called LikeLion, which aims to alleviate students' stereotypes and fears about coding.
It was founded in 2013 by Duhee Lee, and over 5,000 students from 130 universities went through the club for seven years. AWS has supported educational resources and credit codes to students building cloud-based applications since 2015, which became the partner of AWS Educate program in 2017. Every year, the program kicks off in March, with students learning web programming via online classes and offline discussions during the semester.
Photo of LiKeLion Hackathon at KBS Arena in 2018
The program generated over 100 startups founded by graduates. At its large-scale hackathon, around 900 college students developed their ideas into web applications while staying up all night. One of the insightful startups from this hackathon was Tojung, an online platform where users can browse and support bills from the National Assembly that could change society developed by Yae-in Kim and her team at Sogang University. It also offers a list of proposed legislation that users can purchase. If enough money is gathered, Tojung places an offline advertisement in an influential location like the Gangnam subway in Seoul, where Tojung’s most popular bill about preventing sexual violence was advertised, catching the eye of local news media.
Mr. Du-hee Lee, the founder of LikeLion, said, "AWS helps us bring students' ideas to life quickly." and appreciated AWS's continuous supports.
AWS provides tools for students around the world who dream of a career in technology. Especially hundreds of thousands of students studying more than 2,400 institutions receive credits for hands-on experience with AWS technology, training content, career pathways by the job board, and building own startups. For more information, please refer to AWS Educate for students and AWS Activate for Startups.
– Channy Yun;
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