Self-serve online tool reaches more people and plans to go international

 

July 7th, 2021

Toronto, Ontario: Vaccine Hunters Canada (VHC) is proud to announce that their multilingual website Find Your Immunization (FYI), reached its one millionth unique user within just two weeks. The tool, which provides vaccine availability from pharmacies, pop-ups, and clinics Canada-wide, was launched on June 18, 2021 on VHC's social media accounts. This is another step the organization is taking to reach a broader demographic in every province and territory, to help accelerate Canada’s vaccination rollout and provide other countries with a resource to support their own vaccine rollout.

 

Until recently, Vaccine Hunters Canada primarily focused its communication on social media, using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok, as well as Discord, to inform and connect eligible Canadians with appointment opportunities. The team of volunteers recognized a gap in the group's reach and built FYI to simplify the process and support Canadians who may not use social media, and still need a vaccination appointment. By simply entering their postal code, a user can utilize FYI to find the nearest available vaccine site, vaccine type, dose number, and then book the appointment.

"The better FYI works, the less people need it. But it’s still going strong. This shows us that it really fills a need that wasn’t previously addressed," adds Patrick Leckey, FYI cofounder and VHC volunteer.

As FYI’s usage continues to grow and vaccine uptake increases in Canada, the team will focus on international expansion - providing other countries, which have a delayed vaccine rollout, with the tools to set it up locally.

Eric Herscovich, project lead and VHC volunteer says, “the goal when designing FYI, was to build a tool that was easy to use, simple, accessible and open source. We know that we are very fortunate to live in a country that has a vaccine rollout infrastructure and is continuously working to break down the barrier of entry for getting a vaccination. We wanted to build a tool that could help people who aren’t so lucky, anywhere in the world, access these lifesaving vaccines. FYI provides the opportunity for governments or NGOs to use our open-source stack, saving their developers months to set it up and providing the unique opportunity to rapidly roll out this mission-critical infrastructure”.

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Vaccine Hunters Canada is a community of volunteers dedicated to helping navigate the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, understand vaccine eligibility, and connect eligible Canadians with appointment opportunities. Vaccine Hunters Canada is an independent, nonpartisan, volunteer-run community.