At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Loop & Tie mobilized quickly to use its infrastructure to help gather and distribute tablets to ICUs so isolated patients could have access to video calls with their loved ones to say goodbye. Loop & Tie’s founder, Sara Rodell, formed Covid Tech Connect, with 5 other women in tech, the team quickly grew to 12 and has since become a standalone entity.
Covid Tech Connect started after Sara received a text about a New York nurse hoping to get a tablet to use with her patients to set up video calls before they were put on ventilators. In those early days, once people went on ventilators, the odds of coming off them were slim and she was hoping to help people say goodbye to their loved ones. She described a heart-breaking situation where in those quickly-escalating early days, patients arrived without phones, without chargers, or would move quickly between rooms and nurses couldn’t find their belongings and unlock phones ahead of the intubation. Nurses and doctors were lending their own devices, but without a standardized way for healthcare-providers to set up phone calls, many weren’t happening. The request was simple, “Do you know of anyone who can donate a few tablets we can use with patients and have them pre-configured for video calling.” Rodell thought, if this person is experiencing this, every hospital must be experiencing the same, as as this grows beyond New York, there will be many more hospitals with this need.
Rodell realized Loop & Tie was uniquely positioned to help, quickly. Loop & Tie’s core business is to help companies gift their clients and employees through a choice-based gifting experience where recipients can pick what they want, and tell Loop & Tie where to ship it. Loop & Tie easily pivoted to be an intermediary in tablet distribution, replacing “gift choice” with tablet and charge cord bundles; hospitals chose a bundle and let Loop & Tie know where to ship it. Loop & Tie received tablet donations at its warehouse and bundled them into packs of 15 tablets for re-shipping. Covid Tech Connect has placed over 20,000 tablets and 20,000 charge cords in hospitals and nursing homes since its founding, helping countless isolated patients have the comfort of a conversation with a loved one.
Covid Tech Connect ran in 2 phases. In the first phase we received and shipped tablets as quickly as possible. In order to execute this, our Fulfillment Team at Loop & Tie worked tirelessly to power Covid Tech Connect. After a generous grant from an anonymous donor, we were able to set up a stand-alone entity allowing us to hire a team for full time execution. In the first wave, we were able to secure obsolete supply from a few generous tech companies, but after the first 3,000 devices were placed, we needed to make our own purchases, in an increasingly tight market. Our full time team worked to source supply while also monitoring success metrics to ensure the tablets we were shipping were put to good use. In phase two, with a standardized set of devices (vs. the mix of different brands and configurations we’d received in Phase 1) we were able to pre-configure tablets so they were ready for use once powered on at the hospital. We were also able to solve a significant pain point in call coordination through creating the TeleHome app. A HIPPA compliant, no login-required solution for hospitals to coordinate calls.
After the initial wave in NYC, we focused on sending devices to underserved and rural communities throughout the US. As Covid hospitalizations thankfully declined, and fewer hospitals were requesting devices, we expressed the intention of connection through issuing grants to other nonprofits and helped communities in India. We used the remaining funds to make grants to US organizations addressing systemic inequality that was exacerbated during the pandemic, communities where food insecurity increased and death of family members threatened to impact children and their futures. We also expanded our reach to support communities in India. As Covid intensified there, we were able to fund projects such as building rickshaw ambulances, telehealth initiatives and food security programs. We’ve made grants to over 20 organizations.
At Loop & Tie, our mission is about connection, whether it’s through gifting, or something as intense as Covid Tech Connect. In those early days of self-quarantine, like so many others, our employees wanted to help, but didn’t know how. Being able to channel this energy into Covid Tech Connect helped our Loop & Tie team be able to show up in service and feel a sense of purpose in how we could support our global community. We joined Pledge 1%, pledging time and product, because we wanted to join a community of like-minded companies who are owning the responsibility and opportunity we all have to be thoughtful stewards of our power and resources. Joining Pledge 1% helps us be a part of what we hope is the future norm of conscious company building.
