A large number of international brands such as Google, Uber, and IBM are offering their services to help India fight the war against the deadly coronavirus pandemic with success. Services range from offering free digital education platform, donating face masks, boosting the development of ventilators to converting shipping containers to ICU.
The death toll due to coronavirus in India increased to 414 and on Thursday, the number of cases in the country rose to 12,380, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday.
“So many Indian and International brands turn their tools to unique needs that society has in beating back the pandemic. They help add all their resources to this fight,” U.S. India Business Council President Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI in an interview. “So when you have a rise in critical cases and a lack of ICUs house those you can use to try to do that,” she said.
“(Indian) companies such as Dynamic, Mahindra, Tata are re-engineering their manufacturing capability to manufacture what is needed. Companies such as Abbott are doing rapid coronavirus testing or Becton Dickenson, Medtronic, which are boosting the development of ventilators,” Biswal said.
Google is working in conjunction with Pratham to do more online education for students.
“Everyone goes into this with a mentality of what the need for the hour is and what we can do to help bring it up to that vital need,” said Biswal.
Google has partnered with the Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) to promote donations to the PM CARES fund through Google Pay.
It works closely with different ministries to help users find useful information through their products and platforms and has rolled out an Indian-specific COVID-19 website to share detailed information such as main helpline numbers, educational content, and a running snapshot of global and Indian statistics.
Google is working closely with MyGov to surface food shelter locations & night shelters on Google Maps, Search and Google Assistant to assist migrant workers & impacted residents across cities.
Infrastructure firm Jacobs is part of an international partnership that aims to transform shipping containers to plug-in pods during the COVID-19 pandemic to improve intensive care units (ICUs).
Jacobs partners for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the World Economic Forum.
SAP has founded an Indian Solidarity Fund for migrant workers, vulnerable communities, infected patients and the elderly.
This has also collaborated with the United Nations Development Plan (UNDP) India and HelpAge India to improve the requirements of public health such as hospital ventilators, N-95 masks, sanitizers, monthly dry ration, and food packets.
With NITI Ayog’s Coalition for Rapid Anti-COVID Response (CRACR), SAP is proposing to build predictive models to demonstrate various potential pandemic scenarios taking multiple variables into account.
General Motors has provided 600 auto parts manufacturers fabricating blueprints for face masks amid a virus pandemic.
3 M has increased the production of respirators, surgical masks and hand sanitizers from 35 to 40 percent and has focused supplies almost exclusively to a large number of government and private healthcare providers, frontline healthcare staff and nodal agencies in India.
Uber has been working with Flipkart and BigBasket to supply important products.
In India, Pfizer donated 40,000 N95 masks through NGOs to health-care staff, hospital ventilators and food packets. It also conducts the screening of antiviral compounds.
GSK Pharma has announced that it will supply 40,000 augmentin double, 3 K Augmentin IV 300 mg, 3500 PPE kits with an N95 mask, 2 protons plus critical care ventilator.
Gilead Sciences also announced that 1.5 million individual doses of its COVID investigational drug, Remdesiir, will be donated.
It has already been introduced in India by Cepheid, which has developed an automated molecular test for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The test will provide rapid identification of the new pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 with less than a minute of hands-on time to prepare the sample within approximately 45 minutes.
Zoho offers free software (11 pieces of software) for all remote companies to enable remote work and prevent the virus from spreading.
BP mobilizes nearly 11 crores to help tackle the outbreak. This offers personal security equipment to select State hospitals.
IBM provides a 30-day free trial of its Operations Dashboard from The Weather Company (TWC) to the agri-tech start-ups to assist these businesses in supply chain operations.
Farmers in India are getting ready to harvest rabi crops such as wheat, barley, mustard, sesame, and peas, but the lockdown presents complex challenges to many agri-tech companies that control supply chains.
“The Dashboard will help supply chain managers make quicker, more informed decisions by integrating our reliable weather forecasts with their specific business insights,” the company said.
JP Morgan Bank has expanded benefits to consumers affected by the current coronavirus epidemic by offering initiatives such as late fee refunds and a 90-day grace period for mortgage and auto loan payments.
It’s amazing to see International brands doing their bit in times of crisis.
