NIT-Rourkela Students Win Praises For ‘BreathIn’ App With Verified COVID Resources

Bhubaneswar: The Ministry of Education on Friday tweeted to appreciate the 18-member team of NIT-Rourkela led by Konni Vidya Sagar, a final year biomedical engineering student, for creating a mobile app that provides verified information on COVID-19 resources.

They are members of Bliss N Bliss Club of the NIT-R literary society under the Student Activity Centre (SAC) of the institution.

Elaborating on the application, club vice-president Vidya told Odisha Bytes that they decided to work on it after coming across a lot of requests for oxygen in the month of April. “It was ready by April 20 with verified data and contact numbers for supply and refilling of oxygen, availability of hospital beds, plasma donors and that of doctors for online consultation,” he said. 

Vidya further said that the motive behind the app was to reduce the stress of persons afflicted with COVID and prevent the loss of precious time with fake information doing the rounds on social media.

The team collects information on COVID resources and these are then uploaded on the app only after proper verification by the members, he added.

They have so far received 55 feedback on the app.

“We had never expected the Education Ministry to tweet about our effort. I have been receiving congratulatory messages since morning,” said Vidya.

Here is the link to the app: https://breathin.glideapp.io/