We’re constantly looking for inspiring no-code stories, and this one caught our eye right away. Nitya Jain is a high-school student that attended a no-code workshop, learned how to build an app, and then created a platform to help people locate last-mile COVID-19 resources during the peak of the second wave in India.

Here’s his story.

Hi! I’m Nitya Jain. I’m a high school student from Assam, India and I’ll be joining college later this year. In 2021, around the month of March and April, India was grappling with the second wave of COVID-19. It made news all over the world for its severity, but the on-the-ground reality was far worse than what was reported – especially in more remote states.

Social media was full of desperate pleas for help from family members trying to get medical supplies, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, and medication for their loved ones. The death toll was rising because patients couldn’t get to these essential resources in time. Everyone felt helpless watching this scenario play out.

When I was taught about no-code, I was told it was a way to build solutions that solve problems quickly and efficiently. I’m really happy I attended this live building workshop because I had the chance to pay it forward, but what I didn’t imagine was building a no-code solution to help solve a problem as significant as this.

Using no-code tools to make a difference

I'd been following the no-code community for about four months during this time, I stumbled upon it by chance through a webinar I attended. This webinar was conducted by Vensy Krishna. She’s one of India’s no-code experts, and I really admire her work!

I learned how to build apps on Glide, and I was immediately inspired to do something with the knowledge I had gained. I decided to build a COVID-19 resource aggregator and directory platform for my city — Guwahati, Assam.

I wanted the app to be an easy way for people to find essential resources and providers’ information so they could be contacted easily. This would solve the problem of people having to call multiple numbers just to get a lead.

Running a remote team on Discord

At this point, I didn’t have a team to help me gather information, coordinate with families in need of help, or verify the legitimacy of these resources. So I decided to reach out to people on Twitter! The no-code community is extremely collaborative, and at the time, a lot of people were looking for ways to help minimize the devastation that was taking place.

People responded on Twitter and, within a week, we had a team up and running. There were some people to verify the authenticity of resources, some to mine Instagram and other social media platforms to find out what the supply needs were, and there were some to coordinate the logistics, update the app with data, and keep the entire system running.

Our team had Discord channels to coordinate all of these moving parts. We had separate channels for design, data verification, resource verification, and medicine delivery. It was incredible to have a content team that created informative, health awareness infographics and messaging to keep users engaged.

GhyFightsCovid reaches 20,000 users

In a very short time, the app soon became a one-stop solution for all kinds of COVID-19 support in the city, from information about the latest variant to getting contact information about the doctors available for consultation in the region. In under a month, it saw over 20,000 users and was able to help many, many patients find the essential resources they needed.

To date, I have never met any of the people that worked on the team, but collaboration was so easy! Updating the app with essential information could be done without a hassle, we could touch base regularly on Discord, and communication was organized so that we could act fast and avoid delays.

Here’s a look at the app: GhyFightsCovid

It makes me very happy to say that GhyFightsCovid is no longer needed. Cases have dropped significantly, people are getting vaccinated, and the situation has improved dramatically. Our goal was to work ourselves out of a job and help as many people as we possibly could — so mission accomplished!

No-code allowed me to make a difference that I never thought possible unless I first learned software development. I recommend that everyone learn no-code; it's the fastest and the most efficient way to ship products. And who knows, those products could even help save lives!

Your brilliant ideas should not be limited by your technical knowledge.

Thanks for sharing your story with us, Nitya! You can follow his journey on Twitter here.