The global pandemic “has stirred up a missionary zeal throughout Silicon Valley,” writes Bloomberg:
Apple and Google put aside a decadelong rivalry to form an alliance to track the spread of infections. Facebook and Salesforce.com are procuring millions of masks for health care workers. Jeff Bezos is donating $100 million and Jack Dorsey $1 billion. In other corners of the Valley, people are developing test kits and possible vaccines, as well as software to treat the social and economic maladies of the pandemic. Smaller companies have created entirely new business models in response to the virus. The projects can be as simple as an app reminding people to wash their hands or one that connects users with barbers in Brooklyn for lessons on how to cut their hair at home.
There’s a feeling among some technologists that some of their work in recent years had become mercenary or frivolous — attempts to capitalize on a prolonged tech boom with apps that cater to the whims of wealthy coastal elites, rather than meeting the urgent needs of the rest of the world. “Facebook, Snapchat and the last decade of tech has brought us together in some ways but has also pushed us further away from real life,” said Lu, a former creative director at venture capital firm 500 Startups. “The virus is a warning for people in the Bay Area that we can’t just come here and take and take. We have to give, too.”
Tech companies aren’t spared from the crisis. Some are cutting jobs and wages, and startups are struggling to raise funds and keep the lights on. But many tech workers can afford to take the hit and see an opportunity to do good — or at least, virtue signal to their peers… One project that raised $1.6 million started with a request to buy dinner for hospital workers. Frank Barbieri, president of Walmart’s Art.com, said a friend at UCSF Medical Center asked him and Ryan Sarver, a venture capitalist, to buy pizzas for hospital staff. That quickly morphed into a widely shared Google document where hospital workers could request meals from volunteers. By the end of March, the project attracted 200 software designers and engineers who turned it into a nationwide network called Frontline Foods.
Many of these projects offer an antidote to the helplessness people are experiencing, Barbieri said. “We’ve tapped into this feeling of ‘there’s nothing I can do to be productive and useful,'” he said. “Well, here’s something you can do.”
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot