The pandemic has been a tough time, but it’s also when empathy and compassion can shine the brightest. Both those qualities drove our recent initiative to help safeguard the vibrant B40 community that calls Kampung Kerinchi (formerly Bangsar South) their home.
Why Kampung Kerinchi? The main reason was that some of our team and several of our clients are based there. Their lives are tied closely with the community there. Hence, when the community prospers, so does TribeHired.
Our chance to give back to this precious community came in wake of escalating COVID-19 cases. Due to packed living conditions and lack of facilities, Kampung Kerinchi’s low-income families were particularly vulnerable. It wasn’t uncommon for families to work multiple jobs just to survive, leaving little time for crucial testing and vaccination activities.
As this desire to contribute and help the nationwide battle against COVID-19 grew amongst our team, this often-overlooked B40 community became our main focal point.
Developing for the greater good
How could the TribeHired community of developers give back to Kampung Kerinchi? An initial discussion with the Lembah Pantai MP’s office – which oversaw Kampung Kerinchi – provided an answer.
Specifically, the community, local clinics and test centres would benefit from a central booking system that allowed self-scheduling of COVID-19 testing.
After an initial planning phase, we got to work. Our team spent over 14 days building Covidlokasi, which consisted of backend infrastructure that auto-routed appointment data from local clinics and centres to a simple website in real-time, allowing users to easily schedule visits. In addition to building the system, we also fully sponsored a number of testing sessions to encourage B40 families to get tested.
While simple and straightforward, Covidlokasi gave B40 families something valuable: ownership of their time. They no longer had to queue up at local test and vaccine centres hoping to get tested. More importantly, the system reduced overcrowding from walk-ins – eliminating a serious vector of virus transmission amongst the community.
Since Covidlokasi came online, about 300 appointments were scheduled, with close to 100 individuals fully sponsored by us. “The project has given families here flexibility and predictability when it comes to being tested and, if required, quarantined,” says Lembah Pantai spokesperson. “That keeps the community safe, while ensuring livelihoods remain undisrupted – and that’s more critical than anything.”
Templating successful community engagement
TribeHired kept the Covidlokasi sponsorship running for over three months, before halting it due to limited funding. Since then, the project has been handed over to the Lembah Pantai MP’s office for further consideration. Nevertheless, the initiative has provided the TribeHired team better understanding in contributing through social tech, by helping the nation in a small way battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project also provides another avenue where technology and development knowledge can be used to advance the greater good. “Developers would benefit from investing their skills and knowledge into their immediate community every once in a while,” says Devan Singaram, Product Lead at TribeHired. “Through that, we can channel our energy towards advancing society on our terms, and not just to build great products or profitable businesses.”
Devan also hopes more businesses would be inspired to begin looking at ways to contribute towards the fight against the pandemic, particularly within low-income or marginalized communities. Aligning their CSR initiatives towards pandemic-focused goals, companies stand to make a significant dent against the spread of the virus.
For example, why not fund and distribute over-the-counter rapid test kits, an initiative that was recently spearheaded by Singapore? This would allow tests to be easily done from home – which is convenient for B40 families while reducing dependency and burden on local test centres.
That’s certainly an initiative that the TribeHired team may consider, once additional funding can be secured. For now, the team is internalizing lessons gained from the Covidlokasi project. Explains Devan, “We’ve had a wonderful experience working with local representatives, and clinics to deploy a solution that benefitted a community. Having learned plenty from the initiative, we’re confident we can provide greater value in our next project.”
If you’re interested in partnering with TribeHired for a COVID-19 project or initiative, please reach out to [email protected] and let’s talk!
