Tech Companies Team Up To Help Estonian Healthcare System Fight Covid-19

Brussels / Tallinn, April 6, 2020

Since the beginning of lockdown, OSOM finance has been looking for ways to help national healthcare systems fight Covid-19. Estonia, with its relatively low rate of infection, is still performing worse than many European countries with regards to the number of cases per million inhabitants. On the other hand, organizations such as the WHO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation emphasize the importance of early detection of epidemic diseases before containment measures, treatment, and prevention. The central hospital of Ida-Virumaa, the third-most populous county in Estonia, has expressed their need for increased diagnostic capacity to OSOM finance CEO Anton Altement.

After being made aware of the situation, OSOM finance began searching for like-minded partners and invited Burfa Tech to join the initiative. Reaching out to Burfa Tech came naturally to OSOM thanks to earlier collaboration experience (both companies overlap with their stakeholder profiles) and the eagerness of Burfa Tech to help the hospital. OSOM finance’s CEO Anton Altement personally got involved with the hospital and negotiated urgent delivery of much-needed apparatus with the supplier of such equipment. Burfa Tech financed the arrangement.

Sergei Potapenko of Burfa Tech said, “OSOM finance’s call for partnership immediately resonated with our company, as we had been looking for ways to help the Ida-Virumaa region already for some time. With all the events in the country and the world in mind, there was no doubt whether we should join the initiative.”

Another member of Burfa Tech’s leadership team, Ivan Turygin, added "when the whole world is facing difficulties, it is easy to start forgetting others and to focus solely on oneself. That’s exactly what we are trying to avoid. Now is the time to stay together and support the ones in need. Everybody can contribute to the common cause, and we want to show it on our example.”

Asked about the selection of the hospital, Anton Altement of OSOM finance explained: “With a presence in both Belgium and Estonia, OSOM finance had to make the decision to help just one of the countries. We have chosen Estonia objectively - the healthcare system of a smaller country will feel more significant relief with such contribution. Besides this initiative, we are active in advocating donations, supporting people working from home with educational initiatives, and doing all we can do to help people through this hard time.”

Arnold Persidski, head doctor of emergency medicine at Ida-Virumaa Central Hospital, commented: “Any help to Estonian medicine is priceless in the current situation. It’s very moving that business people who are our region’s natives are driving support back to their homeland, just like Saaremaa-born entrepreneurs are supporting the Kuressaare hospital. The scanner will help us diagnose patients that need lung ventilation fast - it is an alternative to the time-consuming x-ray, which we are using now. It will dramatically improve the quality of medical services, especially during the peak admission periods.”

About OSOM finance OSOM finance is a Belgian-Estonian fintech project, founded by Polybius in 2017. OSOM is building a personal finance management service that will unite traditional and digital asset management in one place.

About Burfa Tech Burfa Tech holds the first position in the Äripäev’s 2019 rating of Estonian IT companies. The company is a leader in the field of data center design and maintenance for the industrial sector, specializing in high-performance computing and turnkey data center solutions.

For further inquiries Ida-Virumaa Central Hospital Arnold Persidski +372 53 408 371 arnold.persidski@vkh.ee

OSOM finance Anton Altement +41 79 398 10 76 media@osom.finance

Burfa Tech Margus Mets +372 50 18 300 press@burfa.com