Fighting COVID 19: 5 Korean Startups Stepping Up to Help
The ensuing COVID 19 pandemic has caused not only widespread panic amongst nations and their citizens in fear of contracting the virus, but also financial turmoil, leaving millions of people unemployed.
While the financial impacts are important, the health of citizens takes precedence. Amidst the panic of figuring out the “do’s” and “don’ts” during a pandemic, some people have seized the opportunity to help their fellow citizens transition more easily into their new pandemic-stricken lives.
“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up” — John Holmes
Here is a list of five Korean startups who contributed significantly during COVID 19:
1. Corona Map
Lee Dong-hun is the creator of Corona Map, which functions by tracking the movements of people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Dong-hun is currently studying industrial engineering as his major at Kyung-Hee University in Seoul and assumes the duties of CEO at the startup Modoc.
His app — Corona Map, was the first site to provide detailed information on confirmed cases at the cusp of the virus breakout, showing where and when the infected have been. He managed this, by using data from the Korea Centers for Disease and Control Prevention. Furthermore, statistics on confirmed and recovered patients of COVID 19 are shown and updated daily.
The site was launched on January 30th, and even crashed a few times due to user overload. Despite this, Lee continues to run the site all day, compromising his quality of sleep, without expecting a financial return.
Upon questioning his motivation, he responded: “I merely started it because I liked doing it, but so many people continue to express support. Thanks to this support, I could continue doing it.”
The information is accessible in English and Korean, and as of April 16, more than 42 million people visited the website. Lee was determined to ease fear by rectifying misinformation: “In the initial phase of the COVID 19 crisis, so much fake news spread through social media and propagated fear. I wanted to create a site through which users can conveniently access official information” he says.
However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. After the “super-spreader” incident occurred in Daegu, “The number of confirmed patients surged all at once, so I had to alter the system altogether, I couldn’t sleep at night and spent all my energy on the site, and my health deteriorated a lot.”
Fortunately he wasn’t alone and had help from university students who volunteered to help him run the site. The site became easier to manage, as Lee could tell that people were becoming more alert about fundamental quarantine rules.
Corona Map caught the attention of not only domestic media, but also from countries such as the U.S., the U.K., France, Japan and Kenya.
When asked about his future ambitions with the project, he replied: “My dream is for the number of newly confirmed patients to reach zero and soon close Corona Map. As someone who develops websites, my goal is to devise another platform to benefit many people after that.”
2. Laundrygo
Both cleanliness and hygiene have become measurably important in preventing COVID 19 infection, and households are turning to tech to get professional help.
Laundrygo is a non-face-to-face mobile laundry service, founded by Sung-woo Cho. The startup saw a 20% increase in new subscribers and orders at the end of February as compared to the end of January, before the spread of COVID 19.
How it works: Clothes to be washed are picked up, washed, and returned to your home. All this within 24 HOURS and through a non-face-to-face mobile laundry service app.
This service is popular seemingly due to the use of detergent, which has excellent anti-bacterial effect. Laundrygo develops their own signature detergent from patented materials, with excellent anti-bacterial benefits to prevent viral diseases.
These materials include factors that inhibit the proliferation of viruses that cause infectious disease; such as herpes virus, coronavirus, and enterovirus (causes hand-foot-and-mouth disease). In addition to this, natural softener and natural dry cleaning detergent are used.
3. Ghost Kitchen
Although Korea did not experience a serious lockdown as witnessed in many other countries around the globe, people are changing their everyday habits nonetheless. Rather than eating out, ordering food through online apps such as Baedal Minjok and Yogiyo, to be delivered to their home, has become more popular.
These food delivery companies are automated to receive food, payment, and deliver food. As a result, restaurants providing meals through online food delivery apps have become much busier due to increased users.
Ghost Kitchen is a shared kitchen startup, providing fully-equipped kitchen space for restaurants to be able to prepare meals and ship to customers. Ghost Kitchen reported a rise in sales of about 20 percent during the COVID 19 outbreak.
Ghost Kitchen rents out individual, full-option kitchens to delivery restaurant founders for about 10 million — 12 million won deposit, and 1.5 million — 1.7 million won in monthly rent. Above and beyond this, Ghost Kitchen has a data science team ready to support with providing consulting and education programs in areas such as menu development, marketing, and advertising. This allows restaurant owners to fully direct their focus towards perfecting their recipe, and avoid worrying about the tedious logistics needed to run a restaurant.
4. Sterapy
“Virus Fighter” sterilization
In managing the current COVID 19 case numbers, and preventing further spread — sanitation and sterilization is a top priority of any government taking care of its citizens. Sterapy is the leading startup providing antibacterial disinfection and sterilization services to combat COVID 19. This is a critical period where high demand exists for Sterapy’s services.
Aside from being used by the government to thoroughly disinfect and sterilize high-population facilities such as multi-use facilities, offices and public transportation, it has also set up a specialized service “Virus Fighter” — a COVID 19 exclusive quarantine service dealing with disinfecting and sterilizing in quarantine zones where patients infected with COVID 19 are situated.
The “Virus Fighter” quarantine service presents a preventive solution which is subdivided into 2 categories: a) space sterilization and b) antibacterial sterilization.
Antibacterial sterilization is the service of preventing coronavirus from being implanted on the space via preventive construction. This service helps businesses that fear to be infected by indirect contact rather than direct non-verbal infections. While these antibacterial agents are harmless to the human body, they are preserved for about a month unless they become partly damaged by post-construction friction.
The more exclusive quarantine solution is a more powerful virus removal service carried out in areas where infected people stay and are suspected of contamination. Patented DiH® spatial sterilization technology enables complete virus removal for a certain period of time within a certain space.
“The damage caused by Corona 19 is not just a primary economic and social loss,” said Lee Seung-jae, CEO of Sterapy Co. “Anxiety over living space may lead to economic contraction,” he said. “I hope the “Virus Fighter” quarantine service will help prevent the spread of Corona 19 and reduce the damage to the Korean people.”
5. Glotech Co., Ltd.
Glotech Co., Ltd. is a venture company in Seoul specializing in software, programming, and database management systems.
The COVID 19 pandemic has drastically changed the way domestic companies operate. As the spread of the virus continued, so did more and more companies opt to work from home, instead of going to the office. Business still had to be conducted, but as face-to-face meetings were out of the option, a solution for smart home-office environments grew in demand. However, small-and-medium companies run too tight of a budget at times to afford premium memberships for Zoom and Google Meet to host online meetings.
Thus, Glotech has decided to offer their video conferencing services “ISeeUsee” for free until the disaster of the situation is lifted, in order to share corporate social responsibility to help the business community.
The “ISeeUsee” video conferencing service provides various functions including video sharing, PC desktop sharing, on-site video sharing (including drones), allowing remote control access through smartphones. Glotech’s goal is to support the economic activities of companies suffering from economic burdens and difficulties in a time when face-to-face contact is not possible.
Hwang Hee-seok, CEO of Glotec, said, “We hope that our solution will help a little bit in various business situations as the domestic business environment is worsening day after day due to the COVID 19 pandemic.”
The service can be downloaded and used unconditionally at www.iseeusee.co.kr, and is available free of charge to businesses as well as individuals.
Conclusion
During times of crisis, there are always people who use creativity to create innovative solutions — great companies are born this way.
However important as it is to respect these brilliant visionaries, it’s even more so to recognize who the real heroes are — the medical workers, the employed service-staff, and everyday people who keep each other in consideration, and do what’s necessary to provide safety, and curb the further spread of COVID 19.
