1.3 Million Pieces of PPE – Communicating through Covid with Kitronik

Back in March and April, at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown, many businesses changed part of their production process to help produce PPE for the NHS and other frontline service providers such as pharmacies and care homes.

Our client Kitronik, a Nottingham based firm we have been managing the PR for since 2014, specialises in providing electronics projects kits and educational resources to schools across the globe. The company was a partner in the BBC micro:bit campaign, alongside companies including Microsoft, Samsung and Barclays and now works with the micro:bit educational foundation to deliver the BBC micro:bit (a small pocket sized computer similar to a raspberry Pi), project kits and learning resources to millions of children across the world.

It’s safe to say the experts at Kitronik know more than a thing or two about 3D printing and laser cutting!

As the demand for PPE for the NHS and other frontline staff exceeded supply, Kitronik put these skills to good use and created a design for a face shield. The design could be laser cut and assembled easily and the company made the designs freely available on the internet.

This idea meant that thousands of face shields were produced for the NHS, pharmacy staff and key workers by design and technology departments in schools across the UK and by enthusiastic individuals who wanted to help. The team at Kitronik made over 500 masks per day, but overall, the firm distributed enough polypropylene to make 1.3 million face shields.

We helped Kitronik to publicise its efforts to help raise awareness of the designs being freely available on the internet so that more people could get involved and make PPE.  This resulted in media coverage on BBC News Online, in regional news outlets across the UK (including The Nottingham Post, The Northern EchoThe Halifax Courier and The Dorset Echo, leading industry magazines such as Electronics Weekly, and included an appearance on ITV Central News for Kitronik director Kevin Spurr and its customer PCT Healthcare, a large pharmacy group.

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If your company is launching new products or services to help your customers or the wider community cope with the impact of Covid-19, we would love to help you gain the recognition you deserve.

If you would like to find out how we can help, please get in touch.