GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council / The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) vs Virus was organised as a 2-day hackathon in Kuwait in May 2020.
More information on GCC vs Virus Hackathon can be found on Twitter.
Photography
Love
Openness
Today
GCC vs Virus Proposal from Team 5
Dagmara Sobocinska & Ghalia Sewaiseh
Due to procedural reasons and non-disclosure agreement, Mikolaj Sobocinski took part in the event as an unaccredited member of Team 5.
Why #PLOT?
Photography
Because most of us have smartphones and cameras, and we browse social media whenever we see interesting photos.
And we can share our lives easily with others thanks to photos.
(And the Internet must have been invented to share pictures of cats.)
Love
There is already too much negativity, disillusionment, and depression around.
There are fake news, and real news that make us feel depressed.
We need love. Friendship.
We need the feeling of belonging.
We crave inclusion. We need love.
Openness
We stay in, closed in four walls, under lockdowns and quarantines, and rules that limit our freedoms.
It has to be like that.
But we don’t have to give in.
We need to see the world and be part of the world. This is our life.
We need to open up again to others, to ourselves, to opportunities, to future.
Today
As the Chinese proverb goes, The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The next best time is today.
Let’s not wait for weeks and months for the “normal” world to come back.
Let’s start today to make the world a better place. Today is a good day.
Outline
- Problems and Solutions
- Relevant Situation
- Value
- Strategic Options
- Criteria
- Risk Assessment
- Future Outlook
- Timeline, Sample Challenges, Sample #PLOT
- Financial Impact
- Conclusions
Problems and Solutions
Problems
- physical distancing
- social distancing instead of social inclusion
- loneliness
- limited amount of meaningful activities
- lack of empowerment
- social and legal limitations of freedom
- repetitive and tedious everyday life
Solutions
- stay in touch despite limitations
- meet friends and new people, start new relations
- never feel alone again
- every daily task may gain meaning
- new tasks that everyone can follow
- despite limitations, let’s break barriers
- old and new routines seen in new light
Relevant Situation
We are locked in our homes.
Some of us must stay hours, days, and weeks away from family and friends.
There is nothing to do as most companies, restaurants, and entertainment venues are closed.
We live in constant fear of the outside and the others.
We keep on sharing messages of love mixed with apathy, disillusionment, and detachment.
As most predictions surface, it seems this situation will continue for months.
Even if lockdown is lifted, limitations can be introduced every year each fall…
We are all tired, afraid, and we stopped seeing beauty around us and in ourselves.
Value
- There are hundreds of solutions, but most of them are focused on specific groups, e.g., the elderly, the young, the school children, the musicians, etc.
- Social Media create various movements and events, but they are based on individual actions, and are not scaled to the world which may be facing coronavirus for months.
- We are proposing a simple but far-reaching and long-lasting solution.
- We are utilising social media that everyone has access to and no additional actions and confirmations are required.
- This solution can help people locally as they will be able to see posts and hashtags that pinpoint locations and events within the community.
- This solution is global as various guidelines and challenges will apply to everyone.
Strategic Options
This can easily be executed by a small group of people, all we need to do is put our minds together to form new ideas for the challenges.
We can all market our idea to our friends, who will then tell their friends, who will also then tell their other friends, and the chain would keep going.
The more people that join, the larger the base becomes, the more people can help each other. It is all about getting connected with one another.
Criteria
People all over the world are being affected by this pandemic. They are forced to stay inside which limits the amount of activities they can do, which leads them to spending hours and hours on social media. Many of the information they see online can be disturbing, misleading, mentally taxing, etc. At a time like this, communication is key!
If we are using social media this much, we need to use it the right way. We need to be able to spread love and positivity, so that we can all get through this together. If we use a popular social media platform like Instagram to start this trend, then it could reach the whole GCC and possibly much further than that! Instagram is perfect for this because it is a great way for people to communicate and to share little bits of their daily lives with others. It is also one of the most common social media apps used by teenagers and young adults, who make up a large percentage of people who are struggling with their mental health right now.
Risk Assessment
The most likely risks would be in limited access and spread of the events proposed.
Another issue may concern costs of licenses, upkeep, salaries, or royalties.
Violation of social and cultural norms may cause negative impact.
We are planning to use Instagram as it has a global and open access.
Instagram access is free and an Instagram account can be managed by a small team.
Instagram already has rules for appropriate conduct and has adequate safety policies.
Future Outlook
Whether we like it or not, in various countries the lockdown will continue for days or weeks.
However, lockdowns and limitations will most likely be implemented again until the vaccine is discovered and delivered to every person in the world. This may take years!
According to our current knowledge, as coronavirus is most similar to the flu virus, even with the vaccine, we may live in a world where coronavirus (or similar viruses) will be coming back every fall. Every year we may need to vaccinate again, and suffer some sort of limitations of our freedoms or some versions of lockdowns or quarantines.
Exactly for this reason, we are planning #PLOT to work and develop on weekly and monthly basis for as many years as necessary. It is not a one-time solution, but an evolving movement of people who wish to share their experiences, their hopes, and their lives.
Timeline
As we are planning to tap into the unlimited power of social media, we only need to set up an Instagram account and plan a handful of daily, weekly, and monthly challenges (guidelines). Each of those would be accompanied by a hashtag. We would also add explanations on how to follow and fulfil tasks, so our audience can learn something new.
We would also need to allow some space for an advertising campaign. However, it seems we can be ready to start within a few weeks. Then, we will provide our community with a set of simple challenges in three tiers:
each day - a simple challenge (guideline)
each week - a more difficult or specific challenge (guideline)
each month (new Moon) - general and global concepts
Timeline - Sample Challenges
daily
- love
- animal
- plant
- food
- family
- grass or sand
- stones and rocks
- solid
- liquid
- … 29? in total
weekly
- love
- small
- large
- green or blue
- red, yellow, orange
- texture
- bird’s eye view
- frog perspective
- golden ration
- … 11? in total
monthly (new Moon)
- love
- water
- fire
- earth
- wind
- frontier
- youth
- age
- solidarity
- … 12? in total
Timeline - Sample #PLOT
day 8 = #PLOT8
- solid (daily)
- small (weekly)
- love (monthly)
Financial Impact
In itself #PLOT is designed as a free and non-profit event.
At the same time, there are no financial gains for the community, as the empowerment and the feeling of togetherness are most important for us.
However, the financial impact will be tremendous in a larger scale. Every person who feels included in their community of friends and family becomes healthier and functions much better as an individual and as an employee.
The idea behind #PLOT is to elevate the general well-being of individuals and whole communities. As such, our goal is to have a positive impact on our mutual productivity.
We also hope for individuals to post hashtags pinpointing various locations, enterprises, and events, which will function as grassroots marketing for local businesses.
Conclusions
Due to coronavirus, the world is broken, and because of it so are our lives, friendships, and dreams. But it does not have to be like that. We are offering a more positive look at the world through the lens of a camera.
Let’s share the moments that we appreciate, and let’s see what makes others smile.
By sharing what we love, by having the #PLOT as a platform, we can all become united, and we can look into hearts of others who are living next door or on another continent.
We can become a community sharing our dreams again, and reaching for them together.
We can learn from each other and about each other. Life is beautiful.
