With the current Covid situation spiralling towards chaos as resources run dry and phones go answered, it is imperative to seek a helping hand to find verified leads for emergency supplies, including oxygen tanks, ICU beds and plasma donors.
The hunt for proper communication channels seeking verified leads has so far been unfruitful as the social media community has been filled with incomplete, incorrect and absurd info that often lead to out of stock scenarios with critical Covid-related medical items.
Since verification of leads was the problem, Ramakrishna R, CTO & Co-Founder of CureSkin, reached out to other companies who had created bots to help them find verified leads. Shikar Agarwal, the Co-founder of an ambulance aggregator startup called HelpNow, gave their company’s What’s app number for use.
The bot was developed over the weekend and was able to start with a whopping 25,000 leads in the system. At the same time, Ramakrishna was helping the Sheroes team with volunteer management, so when he asked if they’d like to be a part of the HelpNow Bot initiative, many of them came on board. Not only do they work on What’s App, but they’ve also created a Twitter bot extension, so all the leads posted in the system will go live on Twitter at the same time, on this link: https://twitter.com/helpnowbot
If you require Covid resources and are feeling overwhelmed by the numbers you see or can’t get a hold of verified sources, this is what you can do. Type out your request along with the number of the supplier and send it to 8899889952 via WhatsApp, and you will get the latest information about the supplier. Additionally, you can use this link to try a sample number: https://wa.me/918899889952?text=latest%20info%20about%206204867980
Right now, as the cases begin to climb each day, the number of volunteers is also increasing, the numbers that need verifying are not going to stop and neither will the team of HelpNow Bot. They are sourcing leads from multiple channels and adding a feature to the bot so that suppliers, hospitals and pharmacies can share their latest information through the bot itself.
While doctors and frontline workers combat the Covid battle for us at home, we shouldn’t forget the countless Covid warriors like the team of HelpNow Bot, who are doing their best to win this pandemic. If you require any Covid resources, WhatsApp your request to HelpNow Bot and save a life. These are times we need to stand by each other, by restoring people’s faith in humanity.
HelpNow
Every year, 24 lakh people die in India due to lack of/ delayed medical treatment. An efficient and quick emergency medical response system is the need of the hour. HelpNow, a 24×7 ambulance service founded by IITians Aditya Makkar, Shikhar Agrawal and Venkatesh Amrutwar, was launched to fulfill that need.
They’ve brought down the arrival time of an ambulance from 50 minutes to 15 minutes! What started with just 12 ambulances in Mumbai in May 2019, has grown into a network of 700 plus fleet, with services in Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune, and rapid expansions across the country. They also conduct free ambulance rides to the needy.
