Full credit to Fraser Hemphill who built covidqueue.com which makes it way easier to find COVID vaccination appointments than anything the government of Australia has built.
The site: covidqueue.com
Video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm6oA2bNGdA
He built it in a weekend, too.
I love how concisely it shows the leverage of technology in the hands of smart folks who want to build useful things for society.
There's a donate button, but it does make me wonder about incentive alignment. Wouldn't it be awesome if there were prizes or grants given out by a foundation of sorts so that there's some more incentive for programmers to build these weekend projects.
Many do already, of course, because great programmers enjoy the challenge and process.
But it mainly made me think about how you could potentially align incentives to increase these leverage points.
It made me think this could fall into YC's mission.
This guy helped me find an appointment one month sooner than I otherwise would. At scale, he's likely saving lives, and unlocking a lot more economic benefits if this speeds up vaccination and leads Australia out of lockdown sooner.
Also, it's an incredible advertisement for school aged children on the power of technology to make the world better.
So I'm curious HN: do you think there's a good way to incentivize and reward folks who, in a weekend, can create things that make a massive difference to society? Especially for problems that are unlikely to make sense as a business.
