With 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Colorado and many more being tested, tech companies large and small are preparing themselves for the impacts of the virus.
The ripple effect of last week's SXSW cancellation has been felt here in Colorado, as several local meetups have gone digital and companies scramble to pick up the pieces from the cancelled event.
Denver-based content creation startup soona had planned to launch its Austin-based studio at SXSW, following its $3.5M seed 2 round in late-February. Despite SXSW's cancellation, soona remains focused on launching the studio.
"Welcome to our personal startup hell," co-founder Liz Giorgi tweeted, adding that the company won't let a declining stock market ruin its dreams.
In an email to Colorado Inno, Giorgi said SXSW's cancellation would delay the launch of soona's Austin location by a few weeks.
"As a startup, this is a really difficult decision, but it is the right decision," she said. "More than anything, we want people to know that soona is committed to Austin and we can't wait to be part of that community there."
Events and Meetups Go Digital
Increased caution in Denver has also led to the cancellation or rescheduling of local events.
With a Women Who Startup event planned for next week, CEO and founder Lizelle Van Vuuren announced that the organization's fireside chat with Lauren Hebert, co-founder and CEO of Veeo, would be moved to a virtual setting.
"I've decided that due to the coronavirus updates instead of gathering a large group of (amazing) people on March 17 in Denver we're going LIVE and completely virtual," she tweeted Monday.
Denver-based Galvanize is also preparing for the spread of the virus, saying in a release Tuesday that it is prepared to convert its immersive in-person bootcamps to remote learning at any of their campuses across the nation if needed.
"As a provider of both online and in-person tech education across the United States, we are working diligently to provide learning opportunities for our students no matter where they are, and no matter the circumstances they face," CEO Harsh Patel said in a statement.
Galvanize, which has eight campuses across the United States, provides remote data science and Hack Reactor software engineering immersive bootcamps for students who choose to prepare for a career as a data scientist or software engineer at home.
Because of these existing remote capabilities, Galvanize anticipates all students will be able to continue their training online if the coronavirus spread impacts a previously scheduled in-person immersive bootcamp.
"Many people and institutions are facing difficult choices when it comes to moving forward with personal and professional goals," Patel added. "Whatever happens in the weeks ahead, Galvanize wants data science and software engineering students to know we are here to meet their needs."
Telemedicine Scales Up
With an increased demand for medical information related to the virus, Denver's CirrusMD is scaling up its telemedicine resources.
According to a story in the Denver Business Journal, the company is staffing up for its chat-based conversations between patients and doctors — with about 250 doctors who have been pre-qualified by the company in a queue of doctors available to work.
Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Blake McKinney told the Business Journal that the company's platform is also ready for an influx of users.
“Our tech is stress-tested at scale for going on five years as we’ve been operating at an enterprise level with very large clients,” he said. “We have the ability to implement very quickly with new member populations. We have a rigorous, rapid, deployable platform.”
An Executive Briefing on the Virus
With a large amount of misinformation circling about COVID-19, Denver's Turbine Labs is using its AI platform to deliver a daily briefing full of fact-based coverage around coronavirus to the public.
The startup is tuning its AI-powered platform to read, filter and synthesize COVID-19 content into a daily, free executive briefing.
Turbine Labs sources from hundreds of thousands of media, social and other sites, and uses advanced AI and natural language processing to ensure only the most relevant, impactful content is included in the daily briefing.
"We are helping local and international businesses get the intelligence they need to cope with the coronavirus with a free daily executive briefing," COO Tom Teynor said.
