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Avi Schiffmann was a student at Mercer Island High School in 2020 when he launched the , a website to track the spread of COVID-19. It became very popular, getting millions of hits from all over the world.

Now, he’s 19, studying at Harvard University, and he’s got a whole new project.

“I’ve developed a website called , which allows Ukrainian refugees to easily find hosting in neighboring countries all around Europe, or really the entire world,” Schiffmann told ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio. “We have over 4,000 listings so far in countries like Germany, Poland, Moldova, Hungary, and the list goes on and on.”

Hosts are able to create an account and then create a listing where they can input their title, a description, and add labels, including: “child care support, legal assistance, disability support, whether they allow pets or not, what languages they speak,” and how long the space is available.

“They’re able to easily create it as a listing and publish it in their current city without having to give up their current location,” Schiffmann said. “They just include their contact information and refugees will contact them as soon as possible.”

While the hosts aren’t specifically vetted by Schiffmann and his co-developer Marco, who is also a computer science student at Harvard, users can report a listing.

“[That] significantly ranks it lower and also shows other users that it’s been reported,” he explained. “The website really functions as a public bulletin to aid in the discoverability of just connecting refugee to host. We give hosts a lot of information of how to make sure refugees are actually refugees, and refugees to make sure that who they’re talking to are trustworthy hosts.”

Schiffmann says they are also working directly with aid organizations to get listings verified in some way.

How to donate to Washington organizations providing aid to Ukraine

Helping people across the world

While the focus is currently on countries in Eastern Europe, near Ukraine, it would work for any country around the world.

“There are listings everywhere from Iceland to Australia to America — all around the world. It’s not just Eastern Europe,” he said.

This website has been out for about a week and there are already more than 4,000 live listings, and Schiffmann says dozens of refugees have successfully found shelter.

“I’ve gotten so many cool messages from people that really weren’t able to use anything else and found my website and were able to find listings as quick as possible, which has been amazing,” he said. “There was one message I got where this person didn’t know if he was going to make it out of Ukraine alive, had no idea where he was going to stay, just used my website, tapped in his local city, and immediately saw results, contacted a host and was able to find sanctuary as soon as possible.”

“It’s really cool to develop something like that all the way from home and actually have it help people across the entire world, in a country I didn’t really ever think about a few months ago,” he added.

For now, Schiffmann says he’s working “24/9,” but the website is able to pretty much run itself. He keeps busy with contacting aid organizations, and adding new translations and updates.

“I don’t think I’ve really slept that much since like I launched this about a week ago,” he said.

With so much work to do on the website, he’s taking time off from his studies at Harvard. And, he says, he’s glad to have the help of a friend to manage this site.

“I could be talking to a Hungarian aid organization, while [Marco’s] fixing some translations on the site, and then we’re able to switch that up,” he noted. “It’s great to have a team this time, instead of the COVID site.”

‘Big plans’ for the future

Looking ahead, Schiffmann says he’s interested in product design and design in general.

“What the consumers really want, what makes a good user experience, a good user interface, all these kinds of things,” he said. “And these days I’m really focused on a lot of startup stuff and really trying to make much bigger platforms. I want to make the web, not websites — or the app store, not apps. I’ve got big plans.”

“You’re not going to drop out like Bill Gates did, are you?” Dave Ross asked.

“We’ll see, we’ll see. That’s not what I’m going to tell my mom,” Schiffmann laughed. “I’ll show her something really cool I’ve done, and she’s like, ‘That’s great but what about your math grade?’ But I’m easing her into this kind of stuff. I’m able to be successful outside of school, so we’ll see.”

For now, there are endless possibilities for what Schiffmann can create, thanks to the internet.

“I’m able to learn how to code a website like this entirely online,” he said. “Me and my friend Marco, that co-developed this website with me, we both got into Harvard for doing computer science that we learned entirely through watching YouTube videos or Googling questions online. So we’re able to learn how to do this entirely online, publish it online, and get other people all around the world online to use it. And have it be a really practical, useful tool for people across the world.”

“[It’s] really incredible what you can do with the internet because so many people have an internet connection and a smartphone and they’re able to just access this website,” he noted. “It’s like a public bulletin you can carry with you, no matter where you are in the world.”

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.