From Sundar Pichai to Satya Nadella – Indian-Americans wake up to the COVID-19 crisis at home

• India reported 3,52,991 new COVID-19 infections, crossing the three-lakh single-day spike mark for the sixth consecutive day.
• Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai today announced that the tech giant will be giving ₹135 crore ($18 million) in new funding for India.
• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft will use its resources and technology to support India during the crisis.

On Monday morning, India reported 3,52,991 new COVID-19 infections, crossing the three-lakh single-day spike mark for the sixth consecutive day. As India stares down at a major healthcare crisis, the country is receiving help from all around the globe to survive this phase.

Joining the list of people making way to help Indians, are Indian-American tech leaders and billionaires.

US-headquartered tech giant Google’s chief executive officer Sundar Pichai announced that the tech giant will be giving ₹135 crore ($18 million) in new funding for India.


Google also announced a slew of measures to help increase awareness, information on vaccines, testing and more. “We know the biggest way we can help is through our core information products like Search and Maps, YouTube and Ads. Our COVID features on Search are available in India, in English and eight Indian languages, and we continue to improve localisation and highlight authoritative information. That includes information on where to get testing and vaccines; so far, Maps and Search surface thousands of vaccine sites, and we are working to add tens of thousands more,” the company said in a blog.

Joining Pichai is another tech leader Satya Nadella, the chief executive officer of Microsoft. Nadella took to social media platform Twitter to say that Microsoft will use its resources and technology to support India during the crisis.


The US opened up the supply of raw materials for the production of COVID-19 vaccine to India on Sunday night.

Earlier, another Indian-American tech leader, Vinod Khosla – co-founder of Sun Microsystems – had announced a fund for hospitals in India to build up their supply of oxygen containers and concentrators among other essential supplies – an opportunity that appealed to India’s biggest hospital chains.

Balaji Srinivasan, a Silicon Valley investor, has also announced a donation of upto $100,000 for COVID-19 relief in India.


Apple CEO Tim Cook has also announced support for India amidst the COVID-19 crisis.


They were also joined by the likes of Adam Nash, the co-founder of Silverback Ventures, and Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of cryptocurrency asset Ethereum, who have pledged donations to India.

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