Why this is needed
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic extend beyond its immediate health impacts on vulnerable, infected individuals and include risks of:
Medical system overwhelm
Supply chain disruption
Loss of personal income
Bankruptcies of significant numbers of small businesses
Increased wealth consolidation
Domestic and international shifts of power
Discontinuities in childrens’ education
Yet, COVID-19 also offers an opportunity. As our normal habits dissolve, hundreds of potentially high impact grass-roots projects have been initiated to respond. Many new and well-established projects are working toward similar missions, to create a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable world that’s more resilient to future shocks like the one we’re facing now. They share common needs and could benefit from better coordination and support from centralised resources such as lawyers, strategists, admin, facilitators, designers, marketers/PR, etc. to increase their effectiveness. We have these networks of capable operators and are connecting the dots between critical projects, common needs and capable support staff.
What scope are we considering? In one line:
projects that are responding to COVID-19 needs in a way that creates the physical infrastructures and cultural habits for a more resilient world.
COVID-19 is only one shock of many to come. The risks listed above were becoming more likely before this pandemic and will continue to increase in likelihood unless we address deeper system vulnerabilities.
What we've done so far...
We started out responding to urgent project needs for qualified personnel. These are some of the connections we’ve made between projects, personnel, and resources since our formation in mid-March, 2020.
Hospital PPE support, infection prediction, and diagnostics acceleration:
Hospital data gatherers
React front-end engineer
React + Graph QL engineer
AI / NLP / data analysis team
Large-scale (200 tonnes) China-US shipping partnership
Postdoctoral epidemiological researcher
Diagnostic researchers to contribute tests to the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
Emotional support:
Enrolled a coordinator to lead a unified PR and best-practices sharing effort for several emotional support organizations
Expert psychologists and technology ethicists to contribute research on crisis psychology to be delivered to executives of the major social tech platforms
PR support for an emotional support project focusing on healthcare workers
Built centralising directory of free support options globally - emotionalconnections.org
Narrative:
Facilitated landscape analysis with a dozen global narrative makers and communication strategists to identify opportunities for cultural change
Connected narrative makers from around the world to a media coordinator with philanthropic support to develop and produce COVID media
Final thoughts…
Many of us are recognizing both the fragility of our established institutions as well as the power we have when we choose to organize differently. COVID-19 has given us a rare opportunity to deepen our relationships with friends and family, to work differently, to cooperate across borders, sectors, and organizations like we never have before. It is exactly because we are in a moment of global crisis that we have united as a single global community.
Let’s use this opportunity to respond not only to our immediate dangers, but to the underlying causes of future shocks to our societies as well, to make ourselves more resilient as a whole. Together, we don't have to go back to normal. Together, we can go somewhere else: a deeper, healthier world.