Dr. Ravi Solanki, an Indian-origin physician, has been honoured with the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering President’s Special Awards for Pandemic Service.
He is one among the 19 individuals who have been chosen for their exceptional achievements in tackling Covid-19 in the UK.
Dr. Solanki along with Raymond Siems, an engineer working in machine learning, created a secure website for a charity to bring together health professionals in the National Health Service (NHS) and other volunteers who wanted to help.
The duo have been awarded for their volunteer work in making an efficient platform in record time. The platform created by them enables funding, provides counselling services, childcare support and other necessary services to the healthcare workers in the UK.
The charity organisation Healthcare Extraordinary Response Organisation Education and Support (HEROES) for which the duo created a website was founded by NHS cardiologist Dominic Pimenta and was supported by former premiership footballer Joe Cole.
The website created by Dr. Solanki and Siems included a crowdfunding page and helped the charity raise donations to support the NHS workers at a crucial time.
Praising the two for their work, the Royal Academy’s citation reads:
Ravi and Raymond’s round-the-clock contributions allowed the new charity to tap into public sentiment and collect donations quickly so that NHS workers could receive the support they needed when the COVID-19 crisis was at its peak in the UK. Their technical know-how allowed HEROES to support 90,000 NHS workers in three months.
Dr. Solanki also acknowledged the prestigious recognition in a tweet.
It’s heartwarming to see an Indian doctor getting recognised around the world for his exceptional work.