Dear All,
Going back in time to the beginning of this year, it would have been difficult to imagine what our world would look like as of June 2020. Things changed quickly. While we are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the senseless killing of George Floyd triggered social unrest here in the USA that points to deeper underlying issues in our society.
Sadly, by looking at the reality of racial inequality in our country, the state of affairs is not flattering for one of the leading nations in this world. There is racial bias in the way our country’s law enforcement interacts with people of color. But it goes beyond that. We are facing racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, in our educational system and other parts of our society. It shows that people of color are denied the ability to advance beyond the socio-economic circumstances of their birth.
Now, I can say personally that I was very proud to become a citizen of the United States of America. I came here because our country stands for individual liberty and freedom. The issues we are facing are not in every corner of our society. We have already begun to address them and we have already covered some ground. But the recent events show that we need to do more. We are better than this. We must continue to fight for these values until individual liberty and freedom, our American Dream, is truly available to everyone.
Until then, we are not done!
At Golden Helix, our mission is to create technology that enables precision medicine; which is a new paradigm of medicine that helps humans regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual identity. The bioinformatics pipelines we are creating and supporting are for any and all humans. In fact, our customers live and work on every continent of this planet. We embrace diversity, we welcome people from every part of this world into our community, and thus we strive to build the company Golden Helix that is color agnostic when it comes to our conduct.
But we have to listen and do more. As a company, we will seek out opportunities to contribute to non-for-profits that focus on diversity and equal rights. However, our responsibility goes beyond making funds available. Most importantly, we have to contribute to society with our actions. We must be part of the solution eradicating racial and social inequalities by taking actions in our professional and personal lives standing up for the values of this great country.
To our family and friends. To our colleagues in the industry. To our customers, partners, and also our competitors: Let’s stand together in these challenging times.
Andreas Scherer
President & CEO
Golden Helix
