Hi. I’m Stepa Mitaki. Morning Walk is a personal weekly newsletter where I share some musings on tech, working on startups, productivity and some nerdy stuff.
This issue was sent out to 81 subscriber (+1 from the previous week). Last week’s issue received 103 views.
Unfortunately, this week again I won't cover any tech, startup, or business-related issues. It's simply impossible to even think about when the war is unfolding.
📝 Turning healthtech startup into community effort
Last week two of my partners and I had launched a health tech startup. But not the one we have been working on for the last four months.
Some of you know that I've been working on a healthcare concierge service since December. On February 24, we paused all of our operations. For obvious reasons, that wasn't a priority at the moment.
Until two weeks ago when we realized how we might be able to help. Not to make some quick buck on this situation but actually, help. We quickly pivoted to help Russians in exile with any medical issues they might have away from home (or what used to be home).
We found a handful of Russian-speaking physicians who specifically know the ins and outs of healthcare markets in other countries. We started with countries where most Russians fleed. Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia.
Here is something we're helping out with:
General online video consultation with the physician
Local specialist referral
Local insurance navigation
Meds analog referral
Lab tests interpretation
Navigating an entirely new country and culture might be exhausting. And navigating healthcare might be even more challenging. We've seen many people struggling with that, especially now, and decided to help since we knew so many excellent doctors.
We hope to start rolling out to other countries as well and be able to provide our service for free to Ukrainian refugees across Europe too. But that might take some time.
It's not a business since we're not making any profit. Customers pay for physicians' time only; we don't collect any fees. We even spend our own money on this. It's not a company since only three of us are doing all the admin work. It's just a tiny effort to provide some help in a form that we can provide.
I've been talking to my therapist this week, trying to find out why I spent my time on this, and I couldn't quite find the answer. It doesn't feel like I'm doing some charity work that I'm super proud of. Neither is it a business opportunity to me. It's something else, it feels differently, but I couldn't articulate it just yet.
👓 Things I've been reading/watching/enjoying
Putin and the Power of Collective Action from Shared Awareness: A 10-Point Meditation on Our Current Moment
Otto Scharmer, a senior lecturer at MIT and author of the famous Theory U, wrote this phenomenal piece on current world affairs. I’ve never seen a Medium piece translated into eight languages.
Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.
Speaking of me, I've never been more interested in history than now. So many parallels and helpful lessons. Continuing on this topic, Scottish historian Niall Ferguson talks about how Putin and Biden misunderstand history and what it could lead to.
“The language people speak in the corridors of power,” former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter once observed, “is not economics or politics. It is history.”
WW2 - OverSimplified
On the history topic, I love this 28-minute (2 episodes) video that describes all of the significant events of WWII. Some of the facts I shamefully haven't even heard of. Worth a watch!
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading.
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