A uni student has come up with an app to make it easier to travel in the covid era

As people hope to travel again in 2021, a healtchare worker  has come up with a tech solution to help navigate the covid-safe demands of airlines.

Erika Harman, a dietician studying for her Masters in Healthcare Innovations at Bond University, developed the app VaxVisa to carry verifiable digital certificates for vaccination and laboratory test results. She says it’s much like the digital boarding passes used by airlines and would assist with the boarding process.

“My partner and I were acutely aware that if people had the ability to provide verifiable proof of laboratory tests and vaccination results via a personal device accessible anywhere in real time, this would be a useful way of assisting authorities to manage the COVID situation without the need for mass lockdowns and closing of businesses,” she said. 

“People without the disease who could still work, who could still contribute to the economy, had no way to prove they didn’t have the disease, so everything had to be shut, and that’s crippled economies and had very bad effects on people’s mental health.”

Harman adds that the digital certificates could also be used in the workplace, a sports stadium, or at other events. 

The app uses open source software already in use in health systems globally and has the flexibility to provide tailor-made solutions to meet the requirements of different health authorities or governments.

“All we’re wanting to do is provide digital certificates which are verifiable for whatever test health authorities say they need,” she said.

“After this, if we can ever see a way out of the fog with COVID-19, our technology will be able to do the same for any other travel vaccination.”

VaxVisa recently took out second place in Bond University’s Transformer Launch Pad entrepreneurship competition, winning $1000 to help develop the product.