A Letter from the Managing Director on COVID-19

Dear friends and colleagues, 

We hope you and your families continue to stay safe and healthy during this difficult time. We are currently facing an unprecedented obstacle as world leaders, frontline medical professionals, and essential workers work tirelessly to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. 

Now, more than ever, we are seeing how connectivity and digital solutions are bridging the gaps between hospitals, supply chains, schools, offices, and homes. Technology also allows us to stay connected with our families, friends, and colleagues, as we continue to support and comfort each other. Indeed, the ICT sector has a fundamental role to play in ensuring the continuity of connecting people and industries.

We have seen several potential opportunities for the sector which are already being utilised such as the expansion of eHealth services, eLearning platforms, contactless business operations, and the emergence of 3D printing to produce masks and ventilators. However, there are also potential challenges for the sector with uncertainties surrounding supply chains, growth, and resilience of networks among many others.

With this in mind, we want to better facilitate dialogues between member companies to highlight and support efforts across GeSI. We kindly request a short brief ideally by 31st March and no later than 7th April, describing your current strategies in handling COVID-19. Among the things that we would like to hear and share across the Membership is how your company is handling business continuity, protection of employees, support for communities, and engagement of customers, direct efforts to support the response to COVID-19, support for other stakeholders, and additional questions you may have for other member companies.

We will share your response across GeSI's Membership. Please let us know if you would like us to keep it only among Members without any public posting. In the face of this unprecedented challenge, GeSI would like to share as much as possible the solutions, technologies, and best practices with other stakeholders such as governments and civil society as part of our contribution to combating this disease.

We aim for this to be the start of a concerted effort in supporting one another, and the sector, as we foresee some great challenges ahead. In the coming weeks, GeSI will also be organising webinars focusing on COVID-19, which I hope you will be able to join.

Thank you and stay safe. 

Sincerely,

Luis Neves
GeSI Managing Director/CEO