It’s been a week since we united to defend our past, our present, and not just our future – the last part world is still struggling to comprehend.
It’s been a week. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have been defending our home in combat from the Russian enemy, who has infringed our freedom, ruining our homes and destroying our lives.
It’s been a week. The civilians have been driving vile occupiers out of our towns while those continue viciously bombarding our cities day and night. It’s been a week. We stopped being just managers, students, teachers, and startups and acquired one common role – our home and country defenders.
Ukrainian technology companies have also come to the defense and are working to stop Russian aggression on all fronts – security, information, humanitarian, and protection.
The first thing that managers and founders took care of was the safety of employees as much as possible in the current environment. Most companies tried to evacuate their teams to neighboring countries or regions of Ukraine with no hostilities, where they could continue to support business activities and organize humanitarian aid to the most affected areas of Ukraine. Moreover, many startup team members continue to work from shelters in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other Ukrainian cities, where they volunteer, organize humanitarian aid, participate in territorial defense, assist the IT army, and join the Armed Forces. Petcube, MacPaw, Botscrew, 3DLOOK, Fuelfinance – all reported about such actions on their social media pages.
A number of companies also informed about the financial support of Ukrainian organizations, which are now actively working on all fronts. Grammarly will donate $5 million to organizations and funds supporting the people of Ukraine.
Restream is making a donation of $100K to Red Cross Ukraine
Delfast Inc. gives 5% of all income to help different Ukrainian organizations make a real difference on the ground.
Jooble donated UAH 5.4 million for the needs of the Ukrainian army.
In addition to financial support, companies use the capabilities of their products to bring the truth about unjustified Russian aggression to the world and Russian citizens in particular.
MacPaw reported on LinkedIn that on February 27, they published a post on the MacPaw blog with a list of resources and media, where everyone, including Russians, can learn the truth about the war in Ukraine. More than 140,000 users from Russia and 87,000 from Belarus took advantage of this opportunity and reviewed what is really happening in Ukraine. However, Roskomnadzor blocked the page.
Reface, which has more than 200 million users worldwide, called for the defenders of Ukraine with its slogan “Be Anyone”. According to the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the company has already sent more than 9 million notifications with actual footage of Russian assault on Ukraine and called for action. 2 million notices reached Russian users.
Furthermore, when addressing Russian and Belarusian users, companies report the termination of their services in these countries.
The Jooble team informed users from Russia and Belarus that due to war crimes committed by their governments in Ukraine, the company suspends its activities in those countries.
Vlad Panchenko, the founder and CEO of DMarket, in his video message, said the company is closing its platform to all users from Russia and Belarus and suspends registrations and all transactions from these countries. WePlay Holding took similar measures.
A number of startups are joining forces with other companies, entrepreneurs, and organizations to deliver the necessary goods and products as quickly as possible.
Ajax, following its slogan “Your safety is our duty”, thought about the safety of all citizens and, together with stfalcon.com and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, developed an application “Air Alert“, which already reports air danger in several regions.
Anton Avrinsky, CEO & Co-founder of Liki24, with the help of tabletki, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and Google, supports the current map of working pharmacies. Together with Uklon and iPost, they make critical deliveries to people in Kyiv and 20+ other cities, as well as do everything possible to supply drugs to the defense, hospitals, and maternity hospitals.
Uklon, in its turn, is also consolidating its efforts with other businesses, assisting volunteers and critical infrastructure workers with transportation and delivering medicines, fuel, food, and water to local defense and hospitals.
We’re confident this is not the whole list of Ukrainian startups that consolidate their efforts to act. Furthermore, according to the Center for Counteracting Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council, more than 70 global companies protested against the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and stopped cooperating with the aggressor.
This active support from the Ukrainian and global business community should grow faster. Many entrepreneurs and company founders emphasize that. For example, Stas Matvienko, CEO at Allset, together with his team called on all global technology companies to restrict access to their services in Russia. To quote: “When the war is taking place at the heart of Europe in 2022, and the political and diplomatic world seems to have little power to stop it, global tech companies might be able to influence the situation much faster and a lot more effectively.”
The UCU community is calling for this action too. UCU students continue writing open letters to global companies such as Google, Apple, Coursera, and more. It must be clear. Maybe the battle is not yours, but the consequences are. You have this power to stop the war. Use it now.
Date of Publication: 03.03.2022