New collection on Joinup helps tackle the coronavirus

The coronavirus affects our society and brings along many challenges to everyone's professional and personal lives. Colleagues from the European Commission’s Directorate for Informatics and several other services along with the Joinup, National Interoperability Framework Observatory, and Open Source Observatory teams have joined forces to create a collection of solutions and initiatives that help fight against the coronavirus: Digital Response to COVID-19.



The outbreak and spread of the virus are disrupting the work of public administrations, businesses, universities, and schools. Due to the widely used confinement measures and social distancing, digital technology is an essential part of crisis response. Digital Response to COVID-19 is a repository of digital solutions and initiatives that aid us in stopping the pandemic and mitigating its effects.  



In the repository, you will find a large resource database including open source software, websites, and platforms that are useful for public administrations, businesses, and citizens dealing with the ongoing crisis. As the collection is constantly evolving and updated with newly available digital solutions to tackle COVID-19 crisis, we are also counting on you to participate, add content, or share your story. To share any ongoing initiatives related to digital responses to COVID-19, please contact us via the online form or via email at ISA2@ec.europa.eu. 

Hackatons and online events

As we all have to work together to overcome this crisis, the collection also includes a list of upcoming and past online events and hackatons. 

The European Commission, led by the European Innovation Council and in close collaboration with the EU member states, is hosting a pan-European hackathon to connect civil society, innovators, partners and investors across Europe in order to develop innovative solutions for coronavirus-related challenges.

The technology and start-up world also came together to launch a public platform to create dedicated solutions during online hackathons that are taking place in countries across Europe: Hack the Crisis. As the quarantine continues even after the hackathons, the aim of the initiative is also to offer a connecting platform to people from the business, technology and creative sector in the long term. The organisers hope that the hackathons will be the starting point of a sustainable collaboration platform where people and governments can identify problems and come up with concrete solutions to counter this crisis.