From Crisis to Creating Impact

Watching helplessly from afar as a loved one battles through a life-threatening illness is a uniquely cruel sensation. It’s a state of being that untold millions of Indians around the world have come to know well over the past several months, as the nation experienced its devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections. In May, I found out just what that felt like. As the second wave picked up speed, I could only sit and watch from here in London as my loved ones at home grew ill. It was impossible to keep still - it felt as though I was never off the phone to home. My every spare waking hour (and a lot of the 'sleeping' hours too) was spent trying to gather information about the second wave, to understand what I couldn't stop.

As the days went by, many of those loved ones whom I'd watched suffer through COVID, made a full recovery. Many others, including the family and loved ones of close friends and business partners, were not so fortunate. Ours is a nation immersed in common grief.?

People prepare funeral pyres for a mass cremation. Photo Credits Adnan Abidi, Reuters.

In the midst of it all I made perhaps the most consequential decision I've made so far in my life. I decided, in short, to try and contribute directly to the alleviation of India's suffering. Turning to GoFundMe with my Switcheroo Global co-founder Max Gorynski, we were able to raise almost five lakh (￡5,000+) in donations, enough to purchase two oxygen concentrators, 50 vaporisers, five nebulisers, five oximeters, and a thousand facemasks, to be entrusted to the CMO of Azamgarh (near where I'm from) for distribution among COVID hospitals in the area. We also purchased and distributed free rations and medicine, allocated on prescription, to those in need in the area, including to those who have been orphaned or left without support by the COVID pandemic.

This independent initiative was born of my frustration at the limitations inherent in conventional systems used to provide aid to afflicted regions. Even though aid had been pledged generously to India in its time of need, the aid was often disproportionately focused on metropolitan areas - as the brunt of India’s second wave was focused in vulnerable, hard-to-reach rural areas, this represented a major problem. We also noted that international aid programs often purchased their medical goods from overseas, increasing expense and time-to-deployment. That's why we decided to focus our relief effort on Uttar Pradesh, with all equipment sourced mostly locally, to provide both clinical and economic benefits to the stricken region.

To spread the awareness about COVID 19 information brochures were given to people with face masks.

Over 200 people in need from 11 villages in Azamgarh received 15kg free ration.

People came with their BPL (below poverty line) cards to get free ration.

My family, having only just recovered from their own bout of the illness, were magnificent. They rapidly handled procurement on the ground in UP, and without them the effort would not have been possible. My father, Harish Chandra Rai, was exceptionally dedicated of her father in ensuring that the relief effort was precisely tailored to the needs of the region served.

Harish Chandra Rai (who was instrumental to the on-the-ground management of the initiative) instructing the volunteers to distribute mask and COVID information brochures.

After our initiative was completed, Max and I contemplated the symbolism of these ‘crowd-sourced’ international relief effort, with donations obtained from around the world, successfully carried from start to finish without any assistance by a major relief organisation.?We reflected on the inspiration we'd derived from the concept of?Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,?‘All the world is one family’, and that with the reach of modern technology, the size of our family, of even one person's sphere of influence, can be huge.

I did not wish to draw added attention to this initiative until some time had passed, as I do not wish for my intentions to be misconstrued as being self-promotional. I am writing this now because I hope you as a reader can be inspired by this, to see how worthwhile it is to extend one’s hand in assistance during times of need, no matter what scale you are able to act on. It’s tenacity and will that matters, not whether you have a fortune to donate, or whether you have a huge NGO behind you. As citizens we all have our duty; though our infrastructure is overwhelmed, there’s so much we can do as individuals and communities to help our wider family. People may or may not feel their state cares about them, but we wanted people to feel that the individuals in their wider community care, regardless of whether or not they have met in person. There will, God willing, not always be COVID to worry about -- but there will always be worthy and pressing causes that need this kind of decisive attention.

London Tech Week HackXL8, I got interviewed by David Mc Clelland,Tech TV LIVE?about the AI for predicting amount of time taken to come out of the airport.

I also wanted to set a positive example to the young women, and young men too, where I come from - to pursue their dreams, yes, but to always remain grounded, with a beating heart and a social conscience connected to their roots, as they seek their success. I consider this effort the most profound of the successes I have ever achieved. If I had failed to take this opportunity to help my people in need, very little else I might yet accomplish in technology or business would matter much.

With a little help from our very generous network of donors (as well as a small art auction undertaken by my company Switcheroo Global), we few managed to improve, even save, lives in a time and place of need. Imagine what you could do in the same situation?