After supporting the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta in taking care of Ukrainian refugees earlier this year, we again asked the Malteses about what we can help them with. It turned out that they are in no shortage of pandemic (epidemic?) resources or help for victims of the war in Ukraine. So, they said that blankets though, for homeless people in Hungary, would be useful. So, we delivered. We again collaborated with the artisan clothing small business Borsika Portéka: They manufactured the 300 polar blankets at cost price, and we purchased them. The Malteses will use these blankets to take care of homeless people during the winter, which starts to get pretty chilly here in Hungary. We hope that this donation will make the situation of many unfortunate people a bit more bearable. If you can, we encourage you to donate to the Malteses too! Update 06.03.2023: In the meantime, we've donated a further 200 (actually 196) blankets to the Malteses.Update 03.04.2023: And we've donated another 240 blankets!

Almost half a year passed since the war in Ukraine broke out and the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta is still deeply involved in providing humanitarian aid to those seeking help in Hungary. After donating money, and then donating polar blankets in the cold season, the next installment of our collaboration is donating 800 child-sized hats to protect against the sun. Just like the blankets (and the reusable/washable textile masks during the COVID-19 pandemic), these hats were produced at manufacturing cost by the artisan clothing small business Borsika Portéka, and fully sponsored by Lombiq. The Malteses also published an article about our donation here. We still encourage you to support important causes and reliable organizations in these extraordinary times - we at Lombiq (as individuals as well as a company) will continue to do so and we are proud to give back!

As we've published in our previous blog post week, when the war in Ukraine broke out, we immediately provided a monetary donation to the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta for humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees. Now, we announce two more measures to aid the victims of the war, as we strongly feel that it is our responsibility as well to take advantage of our lucky situation since we are not being directly affected: Just as during the pandemic to manufacture reusable textile face masks, we've again partnered with the artisan clothing small business Borsika Portéka: This time, they've produced more than 200 large-sized polar blankets that Maltese social workers will hand out to refugees at the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. The blankets were produced at manufacturing cost, fully sponsored by Lombiq. See the pictures below! We hereby offer direct help to Ukrainian refugees coming to Hungary: Are you a software developer working in .NET and/or web development, or work in similar areas (you can check out our open-source activities here)? Or do you think we could otherwise work together? Then we can provide you with work and figure out your and your family's stay in Hungary. Contact us! We encourage you to donate as well to a sympathetic and reliable organization helping alleviate the humanitarian crisis. Our recommendation, as usual, is to help the Malteses. Update 27.03.2022: The Malteses have written an article about our donations too, check it out here.

The ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war put everyone in Europe, and globally as well, on the edge. As a company headquartered in neighboring Hungary, but with colleagues from multiple European countries, we're especially shaken. Seeing this level of military aggression is not something we believed can happen even two weeks ago. Fortunately, we have no team members in, or economic relations with any of the affected countries, and are safe under EU and NATO skies. We can continue to operate normally, as far as normalcy goes these days. Our lucky situation is also a responsibility, however. This is why we've answered the call of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta and made our largest donation yet from our financial reserves. As a charity NGO, the Malteses provide humanitarian aid in the field, with their members helping Ukrainian refugees not just within the Hungarian borders but also in Transcarpathia, Ukraine. We're donating to the Malteses routinely due to their unfaltering professionalism and proven track record of alleviating social issues, thus providing help to them was an obvious quick choice. We also encourage you to donate to the Malteses for this cause here. To say that we're closely monitoring the situation would be an understatement. As the events unfold, we'll see when and where our help may be needed, or if we need to adjust how we run Lombiq.

Since our last post on the pandemic, we're over at least the first wave of it here in Hungary, though globally it's spreading faster than ever and there's no real end in sight yet. As an organization largely unaffected in our day to day operation we wanted to help in our local and broader communities where we can. Let's see! We were among the first companies to offer our expertise in remote education and remote work pro bono to the Hungarian education system. It's fantastic to see that a large number of companies did the same for the call of the ICT Association of Hungary, as well as part of the "Digital Collaboration" managed by a government agency. While as a remote-first, distributed team we don't have much of a physical infrastructure we do have an office in the inner city of Budapest that a cleaning lady helps us keep tidy. What Microsoft did with similar workers at their huge campus we did on a tiny scale and kept her paid throughout us working fully remotely and the office being closed. If it goes well for us then it should also go well for everyone working with us too. We ramped up our open-source activities a lot. Open-source is the backbone of IT and without IT there can't be an economy, especially not if everybody is social distancing. Contributing to open-source makes everyone benefit, not just in the times of a pandemic. And finally, we've delivered 1000 reusable, washable textile face masks to the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta by joining forces with the artisan clothing small business Borsika Portéka (they provided the masks on cost price that we paid for). The Malteses are a 1000-year old, global charity organization and one of the strongest, most impactful ones in Hungary: They have thousands of employees and volunteers operating hospitals, retirement homes, schools, and being on the field in disadvantaged communities all across Hungary. These masks will be used by senior residents of retirement homes, who are at the most risk, and by children in schools of the Malteses. Our contributions to the Maltesers' activities certainly won't stop here. And our team members all got similar masks too, they're pretty fashionable :). Our team, thankfully, stays completely healthy and to our knowledge, none of us got infected. Keep staying safe, everyone! Update on 24.07.2020: We've similarly delivered a second batch of 1000 masks to the Malteses. Most of these will be used in three retirement homes: One in Budapest, one in the nearby town Páty, and one in the town of Pestszentlőrinc (the pages are mostly in Hungarian but you can check out pictures). Update on 03.09.2020: And the third 1000 masks delivered! But we don't have a picture of this occasion, unfortunately :(. Update on 06.02.2021: Another 400 masks delivered. What makes it special this time is that these bear the logo of the Malteses! Update on 12.04.2021: Another 400 masks are there at the Malteses now. Sorry, no pictures this time. Update on 05.08.2021: And another 400 masks were delivered, branded with the Maltese cross but this time in blue: Update on 07.02.2022: Another 600 masks delivered!

Here at Lombiq sometimes we "give back" not just to open source projects, but also to local communities of ours. In the town of Solymár, Hungary an initiative was started that we could support: Fészek Waldorf School together with Parthus Sport Association wanted to build a new gymnasium, which would not only serve the school's pupils but also the town's 10 000 residents. An overview of the new complex at Solymár, including the new school building (left) and gymnasium (right). Image courtesy of Parthus Association. The Waldorf education puts an emphasis on kids being physically active as well, so it's quite an issue that the school lacks a proper gym. Soon this will change however, since in February 2018 the new gymnasium will be opened. The foundation stone of the building was laid down, together with a time capsule on the beautiful spring day of 4th May, with us taking part on the ceremony too. But how come that Lombiq, a technology company has anything to do with a new gym? Well, in Hungary companies can, within strict rules, decide to support local initiatives with part of their corporation tax. Since we pay quite some of that we figured it's time to choose a project we'd like to see succeed: This was the new gymnasium of Solymár. The gym won't just stand alone: It's part of a bigger decade-long real estate development that revitalises the area of a long closed brick factory, connecting the once industrial part of the town back to the residents' daily life. Fun fact: "fészek" means "nest" in Hungarian, so I guess we could open a software development school called DotNest too? The foundation stone laying ceremony with a crowd mostly consisting of pupils and parents.