Motivation

Sri Lankan Innovators Battling COVID'19

Covid-19 has over 1 million people affected worldwide as of 7th April 2020 with over 75,000 deaths. Being a little island in the Indian ocean, Sri-Lanka has over 670 active cases with 11 deaths. We can all agree that the world we are in is now facing one of the toughest problems in many decades.

As an advocate of Innovation, I have been constantly studying the scope of Innovations in Sri-Lanka for the past 5 years. Something that I always believed was that Sri-Lanka is one of the most Innovative nations in the world. Although technically we are ranked at position 89 in the Global Innovation Index of 2019, Sri-lanka has had a very STRONG Maker Culture for many generations! If you heard me speak at any of the tech conferences in Colombo over the past few years these words are not new to you. However, with what is happening is SL, it gives me a perfect opportunity to show to you what I meant when I said the above.

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Problem

The Pandemic

The WHO China Country Office was informed about cases of pneumonia of unknown cause, detected in Wuhan City, China. The Chinese authorities identified a new type of coronavirus, subsequently named COVID-19. On 30 January 2020, WHO Director-General declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 11 March 2020, he declared the outbreak a pandemic.

There are 45 quarantine centres have been built in the country for 3500 people, and 14000 in self quarantine.Sri Lanka might face a shortage of medical supply with the rapidly spreading infection including safety masks and face shields.

Feasibility & Affordability

There are several solutions such as masks, ventilators, monitoring systems etc. introduced nationally and internationally to address the COVID 19 pandemic. However, most of the innovative solutions proposed in Srilanka are either affordable without standard quality and not affordable with standard attributes. So there is a question for affordable, innovative solutions with standards. The current masks used in SriLanka are non-reusable where about LKR.40-70 charged per mask, and when it comes to daily practice, such solutions are not suitable for Sri Lanka. Due to the lockdown of the whole country, the import and export of surgical masks stopped. The local market for the mask increased, but the locally produced masks are not that much safe as the production carried out with local fabric materials without standard procedures.

Solution

Local Information Sharing Chatbox

DreamSpace Academy has developed a local language ChatBot for Sri Lankan Tamils. It will provide information about COVID-19 statistics in Sri Lanka, local medical supplies, self diagnostics, etc. As the informations were shared in native language; people could acknowledge the live data and other basic information without any barriers.

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Respirator Mask and Face Shields

OpenCovid19 initiative is to collectively develop open-source low-cost tools & methodologies, which are safe and easy to use, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The Open-Source Respirator Mask and Face shields were designed in the “Hack The Pandemic” initiative by copper 3D and Just One Giant Lab (JOGL) along with many international collators.

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Maker

Viththiyakaran Nadarajah is a community builder and full stack developer with 2+ years of experience. He is following Bachelor of Technology in Software Technology at University of Vocational Technology, Rathamalana. He is passionate about engaging with underprivileged and vulnerable communities who are students and unemployed. He is focusing on building sustainable communities by creating individuals who have the capabilities to be a citizen who in his/her own capacity can contribute to the wellbeing of the community. That’s why he is co-founded organization Sagacious Youth Lead Consortium to supports to communities.

Shanjeevan Amalanathan is a young Maker from Batticaloa- a city on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. To reinforce his innovative thinking, he joined DreamSpace Academy in 2019, and has been gaining the necessary Maker skills to develop Electronics, Mechanics and Softwares. After finishing his G.C.E Advanced Level in 2019, he decided to take a break, before he goes to University, to explore the ocean ecosystem in Sri Lanka.

Jayanthan Amalanathan is a 23-year-old community worker. He is a mechatronic undergraduate of Uva Wellassa University Sri Lanka. He is working as a part-time employee at DreamSpace academy as a guardian of the mechanical and electronic lab. He is passionate about tackling socio, economical and environmental challenges with his expertise in Mechanical and Electronic engineering through Social Innovation and Social entrepreneurship.

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