Our Work
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Created For Crisis has partnered with MasksNOW and Canada Sews in providing several kinds of quality, well-researched mask design concepts for makers and sewists to use as they work to alleviate the PPE shortage in their areas. These concepts are designed to be customizable to allow for accessibility needs, such as adding a window for lip-reading.
Ongoing projects include concepts for scrub caps, gowns, ear guards, and a variety of other PPE accessories.
We are gearing up to start tackling the socio-economic and mental impacts of the coronavirus pandemic next. If you want to see what we’re working on and get involved, please join us on Discord. We can always use assistance.
Our Mission
What we do
Engage with industry professionals to identify critical needs.
Build a coalition of experts and makers committed to serving their communities
Empower volunteers with the means to serve their communities through high-quality designs which use existing, open source resources.
Promote an open dialogue among makers, industry professionals, and the general public
How we do it
Open-source projects like Created for Crisis bring together individuals from a diverse range of industries and backgrounds who share a common goal. Such collaboration is a marvel of a digital world, one in which governments and institutions fall behind. We benefit from the minds of anyone with internet access, providing a constant source of input, feedback, and quality control.
Open-source models are common in software and allow unlimited iteration and variation, fixing bugs and adding new features as users see needs or opportunities. The same can be true in design. By sharing ideas, instructions, and source documents with the community, anyone can contribute. When something is refined enough for publication, open-source licensing allows us to continue collaborating without compromising the integrity of the original design. We have based Created for Crisis on an open-source format that allows us to utilize makers worldwide: an ad-hoc network of dispersed manufacturing, tied together by innovation and willingness to help.
Our Driving Focus
Global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic bring unprecedented challenges faced by frontline workers to public attention, and reminds us of the small obstacles they navigate every day. By giving frontline workers the tools they need when traditional systems have failed, we serve the community as a whole. Not all of us can be doctors or nurses; not all of us can be on the front lines. We have an obligation to serve those who serve us, to give them all we can in return for all they give us.
Looking to the Future
Created for Crisis is just getting started. We plan to grow beyond masks, borders, and the current crisis. We have a community rallied, one which will not disappear when COVID-19 does. In the future, we will continue to develop high-quality designs to solve a range of humanitarian issues in crises or remote environments.
We will
Expand beyond the US to bring help wherever it is needed.
Comb through the aftermath of each crisis to find designs and strategies which succeeded, and polish them to prepare for future crises.
Develop a portfolio of high quality designs, ready to deploy at a moments notice
Build a network of partners to engage in a mutual exchange of resources, including industry professionals, NGOs, and government organizations.
Provide logistical management by working with other NGO's to secure the needed solutions during and after a crisis. Whether it is helping to reform the healthcare system, build schools, address mental health, or alleviate poverty, we can be the central point running lead to help get the resources to where they need to go quickly.