Ridgefield teen helped create timely website
Made as a part of MIT program, it locates COVID-19 testing sites
When Kenneth Choi was admitted to a summer program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was pleasantly surprised.
The prestigious Research Science Institute program enrolls only 80 of the nation’s top high school students.
“I decided to apply without many hopes,” Choi said.
But 10 days after he got the good news about his acceptance, he was notified the program would move online because of the coronavirus pandemic. By that point, Choi said he and other students admitted to the program had bonded through online messaging and decided to see what they could do help a nation struggling with COVID-19.
The Ridgefield teen was in the heart of the pandemic, in a community and region with many people sick and some dying from the illness caused by the coronavirus.
The students discussed what they could do and tossed around several ideas. Choi suggested they create a website to help people find places where they could get a COVID-19 test. His colleagues liked the idea, and the students went to work.
The result is www.findcovidtests.com, which so far has about 6,500 test sites searchable by zip code.
“I was looking through the local news trying to find local testing sites and screening sites,” said Choi, 17. “At that time in early March it wasn’t very organized. You really had to search deep to find the nearest site to you. I really wanted to do something that would help the people around me.”
The effort has expanded to nationwide, thanks to the 30 students at work on various aspects of the site, Choi said. A fellow student, Yoland Gao of Virginia Beach, Va., headed up design of the site.
“He was really experienced in web development so he was the main builder,” Choi said.
The team of students continues to add to the site and tackles a variety of roles ranging from data collection to marketing.
“We have about 10,000 page views, and it’s only growing,” Choi said. “We just want this to be a resource people know is out there.”
The site is available in seven languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and French.
As for the rest of this summer’s Research Science Institute, Choi will study quantum computing and physics with a professor from Michigan State University. His goal is to study computer science in college, pursue a doctorate in a related field and then figure out whether he wants to go into academia or industry.