Lockdown app launched to track, buy basic supplies, get COVID-19 updates

An Australian firm recently launched a free mobile app designed to help communities respond to COVID-19 by enabling people and businesses to work together in tracking sources of essential goods and medical supplies, including updated information about the virus.

Dubbed VenCHUR, the crowdsourcing mobile app is designed to help “flatten the curve” by allowing registered users to work together to log and track through a live map essential items like rice, fruits, vegetables, medicine and hygienic products and what small businesses can supply. It also provides real time updates and data about the coronavirus pandemic.

App users can purchase grocery items from VenCHUR partners like Puregold, medicine from Mercury Drug and rice, vegetables and fruits from AgriNurture’s ANI Express online store at https://aniexpress.1ani.com.ph.

VenCHUR’s product offerings will soon be expanded with more loyalty partners and through the e-Kadiwa partnership of the Department of Agriculture with ANI Express for food deliveries within Metro Manila.

To encourage participation, VenCHUR uses a points system where users can trade reward points for food or medicine after 21 days of app usage.

Developed by a Sydney-based team and marketed exclusively in the Philippines by Infinity Cinergy Optimum Network (ICON), VenCHUR also enables users to help themselves and the broader community with up-to-date information on travel bans, lockdowns, business closures and social distancing measures.

Initially available on Google Playstore, VenCHUR includes other notable features like free Wifi access, a Google heat map showing positive coronavirus cases across the globe, list of school and university closures, data on nearby testing facilities, news sharing capability for social media accounts, and a 14-day self-isolation countdown.

All data presented in the app are from global government sites, Google API and John Hopkins University, which has a dedicated CoronaVirus Resource Center, so users have access to up-to-date and accurate information.

Moving forward, VenCHUR will continue to improve the app’s features and functionality with portions of its ad revenue to be donated to the country’s first responders like doctors, nurses, pharmacists, health professionals and other frontline medical personnel.

Edited by TSB