It’s all included in the helpfulETH service

It’s a Friday evening when Stephan Fox and I speak on the phone and agree that we need to do something; sitting idly by has never been our thing. Maybe we can use the Feasibility Lab? We have just started it and it is figuratively still in its baby shoes. But since it pairs healthcare stake-holders with research-teams, its infrastructure is exactly what we need. Our little Lab will have to grow up fast. A little precociousness never hurt nobody…

And it is really them that this story is about. How the project teams learn and work their way through this time. The over 100 (!) volunteers, who take on challenges despite not knowing exactly what is coming their way, but agree to do what they can. Working remotely is interesting for everyone: some of us have never met in real life, but are getting to know each other as colleagues from behind our screens. Without the coffee breaks, small talk or team meetings that normally bring a group together, the volunteers have managed to set up highly competent, functioning project groups, bringing several solutions out to Swiss hospitals in a very short time! Since the nature of the pandemic partly is its volatility, the teams have had to face changing circumstances and needs. Even then, they have successfully managed to see projects stopped halfway in a positive light, realizing that every step towards making itself superfluous is in a way the purpose of this initiative. Even for the most routinized product developers and iteration-cyclers out there, keeping up a positive mindset like that is hard! I am really proud of the team for the way they keep an eye on their goal: to help healthcare as simply and quickly as possible. I am equally proud to see the energy and results that they achieve working towards that goal.