PPE Hive: Coordinating PPE supply and delivery

PPE Hive is a logistics platform coordinating the supply and demand of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the UK. PPE Hive responds to increased PPE needs due to the Covid-19 crisis, with the aim of activating the capacity of grassroots efforts, independent and corporate institutions and government to adapt to these emergency needs. There is an urgent call for medical supplies to be fabricated rapidly and locally. Small scale producers have responded, and larger industries have started to convert their production capacities, but a smarter ecosystem is needed to support these connections across scales.

PPE Hive synchronizes existing networks - larger manufacturers, material suppliers, makers, delivery providers and healthcare services for the safe/quick production and delivery of PPE to medical, health and care workers. Our application connects demand and supply, facilitating production and delivery, while aiming to coordinate transaction logistics.

Led by Automated Architecture (AUAR), leaders in design and architecture innovation and experts in digital fabrication, and Calvium, leaders in the field of mobile innovation, PPE Hive aims to support essential health, care and medical workers, with the aim to soon expand capacity to local communities, during the Covid crisis. PPE Hive aims to cultivate emerging UK circular economies, and through ongoing development and scale up, model data management and platform governance in the public interest, an issue which is central to widespread platform adoption.

Developed for a beta release pro-bono by AUAR and Calvium, this GoFundMe will support further development of the application to scale up to a UK-wide release in collaboration with Autonomy, a progressive think tank focusing on work (author of 'The Protection We Need: Decentralised and Local Sourcing of Medical Supplies' April 2020) this summer.