Doing what we can: #TechForUkraine 🇺🇦

#9 2022 | Sparkmate

Mar 2, 2022

If you’re reading this, you probably love the world of tech, product and engineering like we do. You might even build with it, and have the knowledge or skills in one area or another - skills that could help Ukraine build tech infrastructures that can support in their humanitarian response and empowering their country.

#TechForUkraine is rallying support, and if you can offer your skills, see if you can help! More about this below.

Here’s what we’ve put together for your weekly Spark reads:

💙 NEWS FROM OUR MATES

Scale your business with Stripe and US$15K in card transaction fees waived 💸

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Whether you’re running a subscription service, an on-demand marketplace, or an e-commerce store, Stripe is a straightforward, one-stop-shop for everything you need in a payment processing system. On top of being able to make and receive payments (with shareable links), and analyze and track your transactions, you can also create customized check-out pages, invoices, and even incorporate your startup with them!

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🤸 FUN PRODUCT WE LOVE

Create animations you can export into code with Flow 🎨

When it comes to presentation, of your company or product, animations can add that little *extra extra*, that wow factor ✨ and with Flow, it’s never been so easy.

Flow is a UX animation tool that allows you to import designs from Figma, Sketch or an SVG, and turn them into complex animations or interactive elements using layers and properties on their intuitive path editing interface, with a timeline and 1/100s precision. After creating your animation, you can then export it for iOS (Swift), Web (HTML/CSS/JS) or SVG.

Flow is fairly priced from US$199/year (with the package of being able to export in code), but you can try it out before committing!

Try Flow out

💭 TECH FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Ukraine is winning the information war 💻

In times like these, we’re reminded of the power that the Internet and social media plays in being the biggest source of information (long gone are just TV’s, radios and newspapers!), with wide varieties of news and updates, factual and false ones, and many points of views.

Thanks to its accessibility, and to a bigger ratio of factual information, Ukraine continues to win the hearts and support of countless worldwide, even from those within the borders of Russia. The constant flow of updates and communication has helped pose a stronger resistance, and has allowed Ukraine to continue reaching out to outside nations who are sympathetic to their cause and can help out.

Although Ukraine is winning the information war, sustained attention is needed. “I am afraid that this sense of shock that we are feeling right now is going to dissipate with the longer this goes on,” said Konaev. “And if the attention shifts, and the momentum shifts, then Ukraine’s in real trouble.”

🌱 TECH FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Disposable face masks turned into roads 😷

Around 6.8 billion disposable face masks are used across the world, every single day during the pandemic - all of which mostly end up in landfill or in our oceans.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) have found and made a new way of recycling them: by using 3 million masks for every 1 km of a two-lane road, saving 93 tonnes of waste!

Roads are made up of 4 layers, subgrade, base, sub-base and asphalt (the top layer). In the study, they used masks in the base layers. It produced a super durable base material for the roads, and met all civil engineering requirements!

Discover AuREUS

💥 WHAT’S ON @ SPARKMATE