Over the last few weeks, the world has experienced life as a startup. We watched as our leaders reacted quickly to new information and made bold strategic pivots. We started wearing multiple hats to cover for closing schools and shuttered storefronts. To some extent, we began to appreciate the fact that survival isn’t something we can take for granted.

As restrictions landed across Europe and casual networking became a highly regulated industry overnight, many of us started to appreciate the small joys of human interaction: the meal we could share with a friend; the smile of a stranger. We also started to hear stories of remarkable adaptation: the five star restaurant that transformed into a drive thru. The hospital that offered to train laid off flight attendants into hospital staff.

Throughout the early days of COVID-19, the Lighthouse Program also worked hard to adapt and deliver on our promise of strengthening the entire financial services ecosystem. Our adaptation started the day the virus was classified as a pandemic. We were in Oslo, and saw the effects first hand as entrepreneurs like Andrea Carmignani, co-founder of Keyless, attended our workshop from his home shelter in Italy. We were forced to pivot to a fully remote event later that week when the Estonian government cancelled all conferences hours before our Tallinn workshop began.

The more things changed, the more we went back to the basics. How could we make it easier for folks to share a meal? How could we better facilitate human interaction?

A few days later, we found at least one answer thanks to a tip from a startup across the world. One of our founder friends in the U.S. told us about a virtual lunch he attended–one made possible by a delivery service that sent food to everyone’s house. In the spirit of open innovation, we borrowed this idea and started looking for partners that could deliver meals to all the Lighthouse cities (hint: not Uber Eats!).

The more things changed, the more we went back to the basics. How could we make it easier for folks to share a meal? How could we better facilitate human interaction?

A few days later, we found one answer thanks to a tip from another startup across the world. One of our founder friends in the U.S. told us about a virtual lunch he attended–one made possible by a delivery service that sent food to everyone’s house. In the spirit of open innovation, we borrowed this idea and started looking for partners that could help us deliver meals to the cities where Lighthouse was running this spring.