Haris Salkić interview: Production of visors against COVID-19

In the time when humanity is facing with great challenges in all spheres, starting from health to the economy, there are people trying to make the best and help the society to overcome the challenges we are confronted with. One of them is our mechanical engineering student, Haris Salkić. As a CEO of HAS ROBOTICS company he decided to contribute the society in the fight against COVID-19 by production of visors for medical and civil protection workers. We asked Haris to tell us more about this human act.

1. What motivated you to start making visors?

We started to produce the visors when we realized that the machines we own can make this type of product, which has become product in high demand in a short period of time. In that way we have been able to help our local community in these hard days, which is sufficient reason to do it. Part of our company works on the development of new products, so fast making of visors was not a problem for us.

2. Who finances the design of the visor? Has any cooperation with any of the state institutions or private companies been made?

Currently, all donations have been made in cooperation with „Centar za fizikalnu terapiju i rehabilitaciju MEDICOR“ from Brčko and with the help of donors for the material. We cooperated with the Education Department of the Government of Brcko District, which provided us with a 3D printer that helped us to increase the production of the visors. The material we used until now is donated, but the machines and labor is provided by us for free.

3. How availible the materials are?

Fortunately, we had a large amount of 3D printing filament in storage, and for now we are sufficiently provided with the raw materials. I am in contact with the suppliers and their feedback is that for now the goods are transported smoothly and that they will be able to supply us with additional material if we need it.

4. Have you cooperated with civil protection or medical institutions? To whom were the visors donated and by what criteria were they donated?

We have cooperated with our local crisis headquarters and with the public medical institutions in  Brcko District. At the beginning, we made a list of those who need the visors the most and we were delivering the quantities we were producing on a daily basis. Visors have been donated to many institutions and some of them are:  JZU Dom zdravlja Brčko, Bolnica Brčko, Služba hitne medicinske pomoći Brčko, Bolnica Bijeljina, JZU Hitna pomoć Čelić, Policija Brčko distrikta, Crveni Krst/Križ Brčko distrikta, Dom zdravlja Srebrenik, Gorska služba spašavanja Srebrenik and so on.

5. How many visors have been produced so far and what are your plans for the coming period?

So far, we have manufactured over 250 visors, and the plan is to work on manufacturing as long as there is demand for this product. We also plan to increase our capacity since demand is still higher than our current production capacity.