Blog by Anupam Bakshi, Founder and CEO of Agnisys, Inc.
Most of us have faced difficulties in our personal and professional lives, and have worked our way through them. But few of us have experience dealing with a challenge as broad and disruptive as the COVID-19 global pandemic. By now, many people know friends and family members who have been sickened or even struck down by this disease. The economic toll is staggering, and recovery will take considerable time. Even with all the coping mechanisms we have developed through dealing with past challenges in our lives, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
I think that the best way to handle the stress and uncertainty is to do whatever we can to help our families and community, and those everywhere suffering directly or indirectly from the virus. As an example, a diverse group of companies and institutions recently took an innovative step to establish the Open COVID Pledge. This initiative offers intellectual property (IP) free of charge for the purpose of diagnosing, preventing, containing, and treating COVID-19.
The result is that developers of solutions to fight the pandemic don’t have to worry about cost or restrictions of IP owned by those who have taken the pledge. We at Agnisys loved this idea, so we have joined the effort. Our tools and IP are used to design and verify many types of semiconductor devices, including those used in medical applications. We want to encourage the development of medical devices to fight this terrible virus.