How Tech Companies are Helping in Times of Covid-19 Crisis

Since the pandemic COVID-19 is shaking all over the world, several people are dying and facing issues to earn for their livelihood.

Well, big tech companies have responded with unusual alacrity and they are helping people during this crisis.

Facebook and Twitter have prominently started featuring the links to high-quality information from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and in their respective feeds and search results. 

Over weeks, giant tech companies have been accelerating their efforts to help the economy. There are two ways that tech organizations is working to reduce control in this epidemic.

The first step to fight COVID-19 involves offering resources to help with the vaccine, donating money to the hospital for resources, and also notifying people about these diseases.

The second step is by offering some relief for the economy so that when people and organizations recover from the social distancing, then people have jobs to get back to, and companies can bounce back. In the case of an employment crisis, Amazon said that it would hire 100,000 people, and Facebook pledged $100 million in grants to small businesses.

Tech Companies which are helping in times of Covid-19 crisis

Below, shared are some companies which have come in front to aid society and companies to survive in this deadly virus- 

Apple's 10M masks

There is no denying that Apple always comes forward to help the economy, whether it's about the flood crisis, epidemic diseases like dengue, and swine flu.

Apple has donated $15 million towards the global COVID-19 response as well as efforts to lower the economic effect. Apple has also said that it will continue to pay all its hourly workers, even if they can't go to work. This includes all the offices and even retail stores.

AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative

The Amazon web services have launched AWS diagnostic development initiative. This initiative aims to support all the customers who have been fighting the virus. And also to promote better collaboration between organizations that are working similarly. Basically, this development focuses on the diagnosis process. 

In order to shorten the crisis of this deadly virus, accurate detection and testing of the virus are pretty important. It will help to accelerate the treatment and the containment of the virus. To accelerate the process of diagnostic research and development of COVID-19, AWS is committing an initial investment of $20 million.

Google DeepMind contribution to AlphaFold

What about Google's contribution to helping the economy during COVID-19? As always, Google is collaborating with the government of the US to develop the websites. These will be based on education and resources during COVID-19 nationwide. Google Search Engine, YouTube, and Maps, information on COVID-19, is continually being broadcasted. 

Within 24 hrs, it has an incredible ability on broadcasting the information with millions of viewers. What's more, Google is also removing all the misinformation from its sources And imposing strict policies for advertisements, video, and other media.

Being a leading provider of WFH services, Google is offering for free until July, its Meet's premium features. Also, Google has developed various resources for people to know more about social distancing, and those who are new to WFH services. Google is also giving Small and medium businesses worldwide $340 million in ad credits, which can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across Google Ads platforms.

By upgrading its DeepMInd system to the latest version of the AlphaFold, Google has also contributed to advancing health research and science. This new system will work on the structure predictions of proteins related to SARS-CoV-2, the virus related to COVID-19. Google is hoping to help the scientific community in understanding the functionality of this virus.

Microsoft will pay hourly workers regular wages even if their work hours are reduced

Microsoft will continue paying all vendor hourly service providers in Puget Sound and Northern California their usual wage, even if their work hours are reduced. Moreover, they have also committed to keeping all the employees who are reliant on its WFH and virtual learning solutions connected. Microsoft is also assisting people who have been showing symptoms and educating people about the risk factors by providing information for the best course of action. Powered by Microsoft Azure, this giant tech company is using its Healthcare Bot Service to help with these assessments.

IBM HPC Consortium and White House Office of Science

To launch the COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium, IBM has collaborated with the White House Office of Science and Technology. This initiative was done to run the massive calculations in bioinformatics, molecular modeling, and epidemiology. 

These calculations will aid in finding the component to combat the virus. As a matter of fact, traditional calculations have been taking too long to find out the element. Without wasting more time, they have been investing their time and money to figure out the component in order to win the battle with the virus.

HP Inc. 3D printing Resources

By collaborating with its digital manufacturing community, HP is offering 3D printing resources across the globe. These are the few resources which HP is working on to validate and produce like Field Ventilator, Hand-Free Door Opener, Face Shields, FFP3 Face Masks and Mask Adjuster. 

These resources will play a crucial role for the doctors and nurses who can face contamination of COVID-19. Nowadays, safety always comes first. HP is validating these part designs as hospital-grade equipment. The best part about this initiative is that anybody with a 3D printer can use these designs. Because HP is currently stepping up to fulfill these orders.

Intel and BGI Genomics and hospital robots

For more than 15 years, Intel's Pandemic leadership team has been working on these kinds of crises. Now, Intel is using its AI and high-performance computing in order to start a partnership with BGI genomics, and Lenovo to accelerate the analysis of genomic characteristics of COVID-19. 

In China, Intel has deployed platform-based robots to separate the doctors and nurses from the virus by transporting equipment and supplies. Also, it is working to offer virtual learning solutions to the students and teachers to compensate for the loss of their education. As a matter of fact, nowadays, most people are working from home and doing school virtually.

T-Mobile Connect

Mobile companies like T-mobile connect are also not sitting quietly. They are also helping people by launching its lowest price 5G smartphone plan. The aim behind this initiative is to keep people connected in a time where this deadly pandemic disease has put so many people in the financial breakdown situation. 

Therefore, they are offering a plan with unlimited talk and text and 2Gb of high-speed data, just for $15 a month plus tax. Believe it; this plan is half of the price of T-Mobile's lowest ever smartphone plan. But still, they are helping people so that they can stay in touch with people all over the world.

Wrapping up

By now you must be amazed to see how tech companies are coming forward to aid our researchers, doctors, small businesses, and even education systems. If there were even superheroes or avengers Squad in this world, I would definitely vote for these heroes who are helping now. They all have reacted to this crisis in some incredible ways, which can't be explained in words. 

Even though there is a borderline during this crisis, being humans, we can come together for the common good of humanity and society. These tech companies are donating millions of face masks and money. They are also collaborating with the hospitals to share resources and analyze data. Not to forget, they are also offering their computing capabilities to aid researchers.