IFES responds to Corona

IFES launches the American Live for Life - C19 initiative. It is an association of live communication experts who are now making their expertise available at short notice and to bridge bottlenecks in the CoVid-19 fight. This involves the construction of building structures such as room dividers, patient rooms or test centers, and planning expertise such as logistical operations or water and electricity supplies.

As a global collaboration network, IFES members are used to international cooperation across national and cultural borders," says IFES Executive Director Uta Goretzky. "For all of us, fighting the pandemic is not just a matter of the heart. Without the virus being contained globally and lives saved, there will be no return to normal trade relations."

Conference center becomes a hospital

It all started at the Javits Center in New York. The large conference center had to be transformed into a hospital within a few days when the Covid-19 wave hit the city. While simple building structures such as partitions and waiting rooms were initially in demand, within days this developed into a demand for real, sterile and certified hospital facilities, where electricity, water and air supply are needed as well as suction systems that create a slight negative pressure and thus prevent the spread of corona viruses via corridors to other areas of the treatment rooms.

Torsten Heinze, managing director of the German Czarnowski subsidiary and IFES board member, coordinated the adaptation of the U.S. concept into a global platform. "In Europe, we are already quite far along in providing additional health fascilities in most countries, but regions like Africa or India are still in the early stages of pandemic response in many places. At the moment, our task is to form the partner network, in which companies that are not IFES members are also welcome. The decisive factors here are rather the competence and the desire to help."

For governmental, private organizations and NGOs

The initiative was founded by the three American companies Czarnowski, Exploring and Georg P. Johnson. In the meantime, the live event coalition has grown to over 80 companies that work closely together here across America. In real life, these companies are competitors. "The idea of turning empty convention centers into temporary hospitals came about in a matter of days. Everyone we contacted agreed to join the coalition without hesitation," says Dave Walens, CEO of Exploring, one of the L4L-C19 founding members. "Competitors are coming together here as partners to take on this extraordinary task. Once again, it shows that this industry is predestined to take on this kind of challenge and find solutions to it within a very short period of time."

Globalizing the basic idea, this is the challenge that IFES, International Federation of Exhibition and Event Services, has taken up and expanded the network from a national idea to a global association.

Life4Life-C19 provides a focal point for government and private organizations as well as NGOs in the fight against the Covid 19 pandemic. Partners can find these organizations at Live4life-c19.com.