The new realities impacted almost everyone in the world, including businesses. IT sphere is not an exception. Despite the incertitude, a lot of companies, including residents of Moldova IT Park rushed to help authorities. Some of them made generous donations or given their services for free, other ones started to develop special applications or tools.

In this article, we decided to present four examples. We hope these stories will inspire more people to start acting.

#învățdeacasă campaign

Our resident company Ellation became a partner of a recently launched campaign #învățdeacasă (#studyfromhome). The idea behind is very simple, as teachers having to use online platforms and tools in order to maintain the contact with pupils.
Within the campaign shall be:
• filmed lessons for as many school disciplines as possible;
• disseminated tutorials with available tools, as: Kahoot!, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Zoom;
• offered support to the teachers that use for the first time such tools;
• disseminated the already produced content in Romanian, Russian and English.

The campaign was launched by EduTolk (ProDidactica and Ellation&Crunchyroll) in partnership with Chisinau City Hall and news portal #Diez. Also, other persons can be involved. For this, interested persons should complete this form

“Over time, we realized that the projects we support belong to a certain direction – education. In the meantime, we managed to interconnect few of them. But our ultimate goal is to help the stakeholders work together, because they serve the same community: students and pupils. We are close to local communities and are ready to help them grow. We allocate our internal resources and, even money, depending on the impact of the projects”told us the representative of Ellation.

The first educational projects were supported by our resident five years ago. In 2014 they started the first Coderdojo club, and in 2015 they supported GirlsGoIT program. Ellation is part of Crunchyroll, a company created with the group Warner Media. They are residents of Moldova IT Park from June 2018.

“Our long-term goal is to have qualitative education in all the institutions of Moldova” concludes Elena Ivanova, Sr. HRBP & Managing Director for Moldova office.

GradeBook – an app for teachers, school administration, parents and pupils

Other company comes with another interesting idea that can be used in the period when the schools are closed. AM-SoftGroup, resident of Moldova IT Park since March 2018, is the author of the GradeBook application.

The company’s staff has software development experience, and well as teaching. So, the app is useful to all the parts involved in the educational process. Teachers can use the system to plan the activity, to upload information or teaching materials, as well as to send messages to parents. Also, it can generate different kind of activity reports. Pupils and their parents can see, in the app, the individual marks and obtained results.

“It is a long-term initiative. Our application facilitates the multilateral relationship between school administration, teachers, parents, and pupils. We would be happy if our solution will be used country wide”affirms Nona Deinego, director of AM-SoftGroup. According to her, the company is oriented to create IT solution that will optimize the management of educational process.

The app was already presented to math and informatics teachers that work in schools from the North part of Moldova, including the ones from Balti municipality. All of them appreciated the quality of the software, told us the company’s representative.

GradeBook has a web and mobile version, and it is for free. The app can be used by schools on all levels of educational process: elementary, gymnasium or high school, as well as by the professional or technical educational institutions. GradeBook app is in the process of testing now. During three years, it will be used by 650 pupils.

A network to report local alerts

Our other resident, Mobiblocks Lab is working on an app called MyArea, where the small communities will disseminate the information about what is happening near them. It will look like a map with a lot of active points. Every place, event or incident will be linked to public chat, where people will share messages, pictures and videos.

The company representative told us that they were working on the app for the last 1,5 years. And now, when the emergency situation is changing very fast, this application can be very useful.

“Why go to a local grocery store to check if there are apples on the shelves if you can see who is currently in that store and ask him to send you a picture of the fruit shelves. Need something from pharmacy? Check on the map who is currently inside the pharmacy or nearby it, ask him to pick what you need and drop it by your door. Using MyArea app you can talk to a stranger you currently see on the street, of course if he has chosen to share his current location” affirms Ghenadie Plingau.

The payments peer-to-peer will be also available via MyArea app. So, if someone picked something up for you and delivered to your door, you can easily pay him. “In the current quarantine situation, the need for such an app has dramatically increased. We need to get involved because we see that the features we have already built can help us fight the virus by helping everyone accomplish what they need with less interaction, less exposure and less personal contact. It will help us defeat the infection with simple tools we have in our hands – a device with GPS navigation, with a photo/video camera and internet connection. Together, let’s put to our use what we have in our hands” are convinced company leader.

Currently, 14 people are working on the app. The company feels urged to release it as soon as possible and make it available to anyone. We will let you know when the application will become available.

Mobiblocks Lab became a resident of Moldova IT Park in January 2018.

Free taxi services for medical staff

Among the first initiatives to help authorities from Moldova in the fight with new coronavirus was also the one launched by itaxi. The company is our resident since January 2018. Together with three partners, itaxi decided to offer free taxi services for the staff of five hospitals where people suspected or diagnosed with COVID-19 are hospitalized. They allocated 900 cars in total.

Elena Agrici, CEO and co-founder of itaxi told us that in this period, the mission of taxi companies is to be the fastest and the safest means of transport for people.

“At the moment when the public transport was partially suspended in Chisinau and even stopped for a day, the medical staff had problems to get to work. Considering their salaries, we decided to offer our services for free”says Elena.

The company, as well as all transport sector, is affected by the actual emergency situation. The volume of customers falls. But this does not affect the initiative launched by itaxi.

“Besides the financial impact, that was calculated and assumed by us, our initiative has a more powerful message – we need to support people that help us the most in this period. We need to support medical staff” affirms company’s representative.

Firstly, itaxi discussed with hospitals’ administration. Then, they also had a meeting with authorities, in order to create a sustainable mechanism that can be applied during the hole period of emergency. The community reaction to this initiative was also positive, and this motivates the company to continue.

“Our action has a good impact at the social level, that can even be measured. So, maybe now is the moment for other companies to join us, and to become an example”stated Elena.

According to the company, the cars are disinfected every day. Also, for hygienic needs, in every car are disinfectant solutions, that can be used by passengers. Drivers uses safety masks and disposable gloves. Also, in some cars were already installed a protection wall between passengers and driver.

We asked our residents also about the measures that they took in order to ensure the security of the employees. The answer was simply – work from home, disinfection of offices and other measures recommended by authorities. People’s health should always be a priority. #StayHome