Amazon donates TL 3.5M to help Turkey fight COVID-19 cases

Amazon Turkey announced Friday that it has donated TL 3.5 million to the areas most affected by the coronavirus outbreak in Turkey and said it is working with the Turkish Red Crescent to distribute ventilators to the country’s public hospitals.

According to a statement released on the company’s Turkish website, the company has teamed up with the Turkish Red Crescent for the procurement of the ventilators and will distribute the devices to hospitals in need across Turkey.

As part of its scheme, the e-commerce giant said it has also launched a donation button on its Turkish and other European websites to help customers easily donate to humanitarian relief organizations.

Last week, Amazon launched the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative to “support the research and development of diagnostics, which consist of rapid, accurate detection and testing of COVID-19.” The company announced an initial investment of $20 million for support research efforts aimed at understanding and detecting the coronavirus in a more improved and faster manner.

Meanwhile, Selçuk Bayraktar, the chief technology officer of unmanned aerial vehicle producer Baykar, said Sunday that Amazon Turkey has purchased 100 ventilators from a Turkish company as part of a new campaign to support the domestic production of medical ventilators.

Leading tech companies in Turkey recently launched a campaign to support BIOSYS, a Turkish technology venture which has produced the first indigenous medical ventilator device after a five-year research and development effort.

Turkey's defense giants Aselsan and Havelsan, as well as aviation company TAI, announced that they would also support BIOSYS.

Haluk Görgün, the CEO of Aselsan, said the defense company had also ordered 250 devices from BIOSYS. "We have decided not only to order the device but also to provide engineering and infrastructure support to all domestic and national companies, which are making products in this field," he noted.