How tech is being used to help Ukraine

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2022

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Technology is being used in creative ways to help Ukrainian people stay safe. From offering refugees spare rooms to targeting humanitarian aid to specific shelters, tech entrepreneurs are developing software solutions to try and help in the war effort. Ukraine is an innovation hub. Before the Russian invasion it was home to hundreds of tech start-up firms. Now many of those young entrepreneurs have had to leave the cities where they worked. Eugene Gusarvo and Andrii Tagansky tell Sam Fenwick they felt like traitors leaving their home city, Kyiv on February 24th but they have found purpose creating a website which has helped more than 3,000 refugees find temporary shelter. Four million people have left Ukraine for neighbouring countries, according the United Nations. Those arriving in Georgia can find support from a service set up by 37 year old Stanislav Sabanov. Originally from Russia he says he wants to help because he disagrees with the war. But there are concerns this new tech might be exploited by criminal gangs. Human Rights organisations are warning that there are not enough online checks and sex and human traffickers might use them to target vulnerable people. So could this new technology do more harm than good? Presenter / Producer : Sam Fenwick (Image: tech entrepreneurs; Credit: Eugene Gusarvo and Andrii Tagansky)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Sam Fennick and welcome to the program.
0:03.6	Today we're hearing from the tech entrepreneurs who are developing software
0:07.9	to try and help people stay safe in Ukraine.
0:11.9	We're not going to solve the war, but what we can do with technology is to minimize the impact of the war.
0:18.9	But there are concerns that this tech might be exploited
0:21.8	and cause more harm than good.
0:24.8	Several of these apps don't take any responsibility,
0:27.6	don't make any sort of checks on the people.
0:30.3	Many charities that work on the ground
0:32.0	and work with refugees are flagging the risk of sex traffickers
0:35.5	and human traffickers.
0:36.5	This is Business Daily from the BBC.
0:43.2	Everything changed in the end of February.
0:50.4	We were sleeping at homes in Kieviv where we heard the first explosion.
0:55.0	And then we realized, okay, the war is here.
1:00.0	Our car was filled with petroleum and our suitcases were red as well.
1:07.0	And just in one hour we jumped with our wives and with our Corgi Luna and
1:14.2	to the car and move to Lv. We are in the same house, just in different rooms. This is the house
1:24.1	of parents of my wife. On the first day of war, like 6.30 a.m. We had moved here from
1:32.8	Kiev. Eugene Gussarov and Andri Tagansky became good friends after working together for four
1:40.1	years at a tech firm in Kiev. They live close by to each other and before the war they and their
1:46.6	wives would spend all of their free time together, walking in the city's parks with their dog
	...

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