A majority of such projects focus on assisting asylum seekers fleeing Ukraine to find shelter and safety in neighbouring countries. They are usually managed by developers living in bordering Member States such as Romania, Hungary, and Poland. However, open technologies do not have a flag, so it is not surprising that the help has arrived from other EU countries and from around the globe.
As for the neighbouring Member States, a group of Hungarian developers have launched Ukraine Help, a website providing useful information to facilitate crossing the border into Hungary. This project provides Ukrainian asylum seekers and refugees with essential information on medical and legal aid, accommodation, education, and bringing pets. In Romania, the NGO Code for Romania, in partnership with other organisations, has developed Dopomoha (which stands for ‘help’ in Ukrainian). As is the case for Ukraine Help in Hungary, Dopomoha provides all the information one might need when entering Romania and accessing national services.
Along the same lines, Polish developer Kemal Erdem has launched UASupport “to be the first layer of response to the refugee crisis after the war started”, as he stated to the OSOR Team. The platform, which received financial and political endorsement by the Polish government and was then acquired by the NGO Airbnb.org to streamline the process, aims to find accommodation for Ukrainians fleeing the country by connecting them with volunteers, offering various hosting solutions across Europe.
Open source contributions, ideas, and new projects have rolled in from the rest of the EU and the international community as well. For instance, a group of developers have set up the Find-Shelter website to link Ukrainian refugees with individuals and initiatives that want to provide those fleeing with shelter in France. Additionally, international teams of volunteers have launched other initiatives such as the UASafety.org website and the Together App. The former gives Ukrainians timely information on border crossings, missile alerts, missing person reporting, accommodation, and medical assistance while the latter is a self-hosted open source app, based on the closed source Slack communication tool, which aims to keep track of employee wellbeing and dislocation during the Russo-Ukrainian war using an interactive map.
Open source has proven once again that international cooperation is the only way to go. As Kelan Larkin, one of the developers working on the UASafety.org initiative, said in an interview with the OSOR Team, “We all came together because we wanted to help the people of Ukraine. [...] As a group, we strive to simply help those in need, with providing whatever information we can to help. [...] We do not do any work on the offensive side […] our place is in helping those in need.”
The OSOR Team
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