How Student Builders Change the World on AWS
Published: 2020-03-26 04:50:07

Public health systems often struggle to connect data across agencies and systems — leaving some communities without the insights they need to allocate resources optimally or to take action in the face of emerging epidemics. Online maps and collected data that show how the new coronavirus has spread across South Korean were accessible for people to try to avoid the potentially fatal virus.

For example, the [Corona Map](http://coronamap.site/) was built on AWS by Mr. Dong-hoon Lee, a student developer at Kyunghee University and co-founder of [Modoc](https://www.modoc.care/), a mobile app of self-diagnosis for hair loss. He wanted to share transparent information about spreading the virus with his programming skills. The site shows the latest figures and movements of confirmed and suspected cases gathering government data and news articles. It shows colored-circles and lines that indicate the movements of people who have been diagnosed with the virus for others to avoid potential risks.

This site launched on 30 January when the country had confirmed six confirmed cases, which has attracted nearly [8 million visits](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200204003700315) in the first five days of its launch. AWS Korea decided to [support his cost to pay for its cloud resources](http://evoice.ewha.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=10269) for helping the public health in the country. It has now accumulated [over 37 million views](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/s-koreans-find-creative-ways-to-combat-covid-19) on 23 March. 

![image](https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/da4b9237bacccdf19c0760cab7aec4a8359010b0/2020/02/04/2020-coronamap-korea.png)
*Screenshots of CoronaMap and Corona NearBy web site*

The [Corona Nearby](https://corona-nearby.com) built on AWS also became the popular site developed by four students, not to major in computer science at Korea University. It allows users to enter their location and see affected venues in the vicinity and see the information of hospitals and health centers that potential patients can visit.

Rerunning the pandemic of [Middle East respiratory syndrome\(MERS\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome) in 2015, a massive outbreak occurred in South Korea. Lots of people fell into panic due to a lack of information. [MERSMap](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/mers-south-korea/) built by student developers on AWS played a crucial role to share user-friendly information. It had acquired 5 million users and fielded 340 different reports that linked to the government’s site and other resources.

Three sites have one thing in common besides the purpose of providing public health information. They learned coding skills in a national-wide nonprofit programming club called [Like Lions](https://likelion.net/en) aims to alleviate students' stereotypes and fears about coding, and provides non-majors and humanities students with the opportunity to tackle various social problems through coding.

![image](https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/da4b9237bacccdf19c0760cab7aec4a8359010b0/2020/02/05/2020-logo_KE_symbol.png)

It was founded in 2013 by Duhee Lee, and over 5,000 students from 130 universities went through the club for seven years. AWS has supported educational resources and credit codes to students building cloud-based applications since 2015, which became the partner of [AWS Educate program](https://aws.amazon.com/education/awseducate/) in 2017. Every year, this program kicks off on March and learning web programmings via online classes and offline discussions during the semester for selected students.

![image](https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/da4b9237bacccdf19c0760cab7aec4a8359010b0/2020/02/05/2020-likellion-hackathon.jpg)
*Photo of LiKeLion Hackathon at KBS Arena in 2018*

It generated [over 100 startups](https://startup.likelion.org/) founded by graduated students inspired by ideas of the large-scale hackathon that around 900 college students developed their plan to web applications staying up all night. One of the insightful startups from this hackathon was Tojung, a shopping mall for bills from National Assembly that could change our life and society developed by Yae-in Kim and her team at Sogang University. It also offers a list of proposed legislation that users can purchase. If enough money is gathered, Tojung places an offline advertisement in an influential location like the Gangnam subway in Seoul, where Tojung’s most popular bill about preventing sexual violence was advertised, catching the eye of local news media.

Mr. Du-hee Lee, the founder of LikeLion, said, "AWS is helping us to bring student's ideas to be realized quickly." and appreciated AWS's continuous supports.

AWS provides tools for students around the world dreaming of a technology career. Especially hundreds of thousands of students studying more than 2,400 institutions receive credits for hands-on experience with AWS technology, training content, career pathways by the job board, and building own startups. For more information, please refer [AWS Educate](https://aws.amazon.com/education/awseducate/) for students and [AWS Activate](https://aws.amazon.com/activate/) for Startups.

– Channy Yun;