Covid-19 Crisis: Helping Those on the Front Line
On Saturday March 28th, I received a message on my personal email inbox from a representative of the Gendarmerie Nationale (one of France’s national police forces), asking me if Digimind could help them in the management of the Covid-19 crisis by providing free access to our web listening technologies.
I answered positively, and their request made me think.
The following Monday, we decided to offer free access to our technology to all governmental and non-governmental organizations that would request it to help them manage the Covid-19 crisis.
The next day, we published a press release on our website and invited all Digiminders to share the initiative.
The response exceeded all our expectations. There was clearly a great need for our technology in the midst of the crisis. Within a few days, we received many requests from all over the world, from very different organizations, but they all had one thing in common: they were impacted by the crisis and were often on the front line, or in the service of those who were on the front line:
- Those most disadvantaged are the first and most severely affected by the crisis. Organizations such as the Red Cross, Action Against Hunger and Emmaus aim to help them.
- The Covid-19 crisis also affects those most vulnerable. Save the Children, Humanity &Inclusion, Amnesty International and Plan International are addressing their needs.
- Some economic sectors are badly affected by the crisis. This is the case of tourism, which is a driving force of the local economy in many regions. The Paris Ile-de-France Regional Tourism Committee and the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism are fully dedicated to this issue.
- Meanwhile, students and researchers at the University of Strasbourg, the University of Edinburgh Business School and a College of Medicine in Texas (confidential) have started to study the impact of Covid-19.
All Digimind's teams have been mobilized to provide human support to the managers of these different organizations, to help them set up and use our solutions in order to help them manage this crisis.
To date, we have received and accepted more than 30 requests from 14 countries, and we continue to receive some every week. If you work for a governmental or non-governmental organization, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We are very glad and proud to be able to make a modest contribution to the management of this crisis.