Since I decided to make things with altruistic abandon for April—anything COVID-19-related—I’d been observing needs and trends, and brainstorming ideas to plug those gaps. Some ideas so far:

Listings sites galore

I made a listing site for businesses, but with a civic blooming of mutual aid efforts, government initiatives and NGO programmes, perhaps there should be more listings now - for workers, industries, families, etc. All these listings need a listing, an umbrella mega-listing site to help people navigate to what they need.

Concierge bot

Form/chat bot with logic flow to help businesses see what government schemes they are eligible for. The Singapore Government had recently announced the Resilience Budget, an add-on budget of $48billion, and the whole of government has responded to deal with a plethora of schemes, grants, rebates, funding. Not just for businesses but industries and workers too. So many that it’s getting hard to navigate. Perhaps a logic flow in the format of an online form or messaging thread, that asks them a couple of questions to help them zoom in on the different funding they might have missed. Version 2.0 of this concierge form/bot could even be an extension of the mega-listing site from the first idea.

Tools for nudging civic behaviour

I’m not so sure what the solutions might look like, but here in Singapore, I think the government is trying really hard to get citizens to practice safe distancing and staying home. It’s part complacency, part not understanding just how bad it is, part driven out of daily practicality. They released advisories, text messages, infographics to drive in the point. They put in a temporary bill to make it illegal for business owners to ignore safe distancing in their premises. But everyone need to be responsible and play their part, and short of enacting yet another law to enforce safe distancing behaviour, it’s a hard uphill task of cultural/habit change on a massive scale. I’m thinking, what can we make to help people practice distancing better. Smartphone tech that beeps when others get too close? Comics and posters to drive home the point? A volunteer corps that walks around and tries to remind/convince people to stay apart?

Last mile food delivery for local restaurants

With everyone staying home more, there’ll be a greater demand for food delivery. But not every F&B outlet are on the current incumbents food delivery apps like Grab and Foodpanda. Many are small-time, sole proprietors running micro stalls in our food courts or hawker centres, and aren’t necessarily tech savvy. There has to be a better way to help them get their food offerings online, get orders, receive payment, and book delivery, all without bursting their already low margins. In fact, some of these restaurants might have idle service staff right now, whose job can now be redesigned to delivery instead. From on-site service delivery to off-site delivery of service. That way, restaurants get to keep their staff, nobody loses their jobs, the kitchen keeps running, and customers remain happy. Truth is, I’m also getting bored of ordering from the same old restaurants on the usual food delivery apps, and would welcome some variety from the local neighbourhood food stall I frequented before this whole shebang. This can eventually include home bakers and home cooks too, now that everyone is staying home and so might as well make a living there!

Listing site of all the grocery deliveries

Grocery delivery had suddenly went mainstream during the lockdown. People need to get food, but are now worried to head out and mingle with the supermarket crowd. There was a huge list of all the various supermarkets chains, stand-alone grocers, gourmet stores circling around on Whatsapp. The virality of that one message goes to show how the demand for this resource is high. And it’s great to know there’s many other companies that deliver fresh food and daily supplies besides the the usual supermarket chains, because these incumbent players are overwhelmed with delivery orders, and it’s almost impossible to find a delivery slot now on their platform. So diversity of sources that the list will show, will help ease the demand somewhat. At the most basic level, the listing site should point you to outbound links where you can order what you need. Perhaps the next level of features could be a scraper and filter that can tell you if there are any delivery slots available on the date, time and location that you want, before you even click on it. And if there isn’t any, you can be matched up with freelance delivery folks or even hire a Grab driver to deliver for you. This would be something I would want to use myself, especially since it’s been particularly frustrating to get the stock I need (many goods are out of stock), and any delivery slot for that matter.

To be continued…