In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, one group of motivated individuals quickly mobilized to create a powerful community. Their goal was to bring the tech world together in creating solutions to help people during the pandemic.

In this event, Stela Suils Cuesta (SG Lisbon’s Director) and João Figueirinhas Costa (CEO of Humaniaks and spokesperson for the #tech4COVID19 movement) discuss how this powerful idea came to be, how it all came together and how they managed to make an impact from the get-go, by combining talent and technology as a movement.

The #tech4covid19 movement has already more than 5469 volunteers, working on 72 initiatives (36 projects and 36 prospects) to beat the virus and the associated economic crisis. Portugal tops the OECD list of the countries with the most innovative projects to combat COVID-19. This movement had a lot to do with it. There are already a large number of initiatives launched to the public generating real value to society, like:

• Rooms Against Covid. A booking engine to allow health professionals to book free hotel/Airbnb rooms, so they can keep their families safe and avoid cross-contamination. 687 matches, 13.529 nights already booked, 9.613 nights already used, and 129 full professional cleaning services provided. They have expanded to Brazil and the UK.
• Covidografia, a crowdsourced app to track the epidemic evolution, allowing the public entities to see how the virus is spreading. It has already 66.069 users registered
• The 98 psychologists available in the acalma.online platform, have already provided 467 free consultations, out of 802 already booked
• A very successful crowdfunding campaign to buy medical supplies. The campaign was closed on 03/04/2020 with an outstanding result: 6428 people donated 210.335€ (The initial objective was 100.00€!) The funds were used to provide 106.000 masks FFP2, 2.168 masks FFP1, 2.168 glasses, 3.000 jumpsuits and 2.187 surgical gowns to the local hospitals that most needed it.
• TeamLoan A marketplace where commercial businesses can exchange / lend team members temporarily, in order to channel capacity to businesses with more demand in this context, minimizing unemployment and helping local businesses.
• Can I go? App A “wisdom of the crowds”-based app to know if there is a long, small or no line in the supermarket or pharmacy that you want/need to go, so unwanted/unnecessary crowd gatherings can be avoided. The app is available in Portugal, Spain and Slovakia counting already with 93.880 downloads/users, 65.489 locations listed and 22.0422 data reports.

These are just 6 out of the 36 amazing projects of this Human to Human movement, visit their website to know more or to join them as a volunteer..