https://time.com/6163708/kyiv-digital-technology-app/
"When Oleg Polovynko thinks of the first days of the Russian invasion of his
country, he looks down at his fitness watch. In normal times, the 38-year-old
IT director in Kyiv’s city council used his Garmin watch to track his workouts.
“Right now, my heart rate is 62,” he tells TIME, holding up his wrist. “In the
first five days after Feb. 24, it was never below 90.”
For the past five weeks, Polovynko and his boss, Kyiv’s deputy mayor and chief
digital transformation officer Petro Olenych, have led an exhaustive effort to
adapt and repurpose everyday technology for a city that has found itself facing
a 20th-century-style war. Their creative maneuvers are a key reason that most
residents of the Ukrainian capital can connect to the Internet in underground
bomb shelters, find open pharmacies and grocery stores, and go to sleep knowing
their phone will alert them of incoming air raids before the physical sirens
sound.
While President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian digital officials have been
lauded for their success in galvanizing global support on social media and
fending off the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns, local officials like
Olenych and Polovynko have focused on the practical.
“Every day, we wake up and we’re thinking how we can keep people in the city
alive and safe,” says Olenych. The popular Kyiv Digital smartphone app, which
residents previously used to pay utility bills and parking tickets, now gives
them a map of the closest bomb shelters and places to get critical supplies
like insulin, food or gasoline. Notifications for the closure of a local metro
stop for repairs have given way to warnings of incoming air raids."
Via The RISKS Digest Volume 33 Issue 13:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/33/13
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
