Paras Chopra and Sparsh Gupta, Co-Founders of Wingify, an India-based SaaS company in partnership with other organizers started an open initiative, Coronathon, to invite volunteers for building solutions for COVID-19. The initiative saw 42 projects from a pool of 111 ideas benefitting 200,000+ people through information websites, accessed by millions of people.
The objective of the event was to develop new technologies that strengthen situational awareness, safety, and emergency response during these unprecedented times. It enabled collaboration for innovating a variety of solutions like 3D printed ventilator parts, websites for requesting and donating PPE kits and to enable senior citizens to request for help and matching them to volunteers in their neighbourhood.
Some interesting projects developed by volunteers include:
COVID SOS, an app that helps connect regular citizens to distressed senior citizens & specially-abled people from their neighbourhood to complete essential chores (e.g. ration, medicines)
Anti-Viral Mask, a unique reusable facemask with next-generation technologies enable them to have anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties
PPE Tracker, a digital platform connecting PPE donors, requesters, supplier/manufacturers to attend to PPE requests at the earliest
COVID FYI, a one-stop discovery platform to access authentic COVID information on emergency help and services for your city or state, provided by the verified government and official authorities.
Commenting on the initiative, Sparsh Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder, Wingify, said, “We were very excited to introduce a platform to bring the best brains in the country together to identify solutions to address the most pressing issue of COVID-19 that the country and world are grappling with.”
“It was heartening to see almost 3000 people come together and develop close to 40 projects after I put a tweet to address the current needs of the people of India. I am proud of the projects and solutions launched through the initiative,” added Paras Chopra, Chairman and Founder, Wingify.
Sathish Raghuraman, a Hong Kong-based software developer and a co-organizer, commented, “Our biggest reward was user impact. It was inspiring to see students and professionals voluntarily put in 4 weeks of painstaking effort to positively impact the nation while juggling their other responsibilities such as education, work and family”
The entire initiative was organized by professionals volunteering their time, including Paras Chopra, Sparsh Gupta, Sathish Raghuraman, Vivek VS, Arun Patre, Prerna Bagga, Akash Tandon, Chandresh Vaghanani, Ankit Jain and Cynthia Rajan. Furthermore, over the 3 Demo Days, projects were presented to panellists of luminaries from private organisations like Google Pay; Investors from Accel Partners, Omidyar Network; government representatives from Innovation Unit of National Health Authority India, UN Healthcare Information Exchange and NGOs including Act Grants.
Spread over a span of 4 weeks, 42 projects were launched which benefited 2,00,000+ citizens, gathered multiple donors and delivered 50,000 PPE’s.
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