An engineer from Maidstone has come up with a new way to boost the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) to healthcare workers fighting Covid-19.

Ross Ward used his time in lockdown to design MineAMask, an app that uses computer software to solve algorithms generating money for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

The 26-year-old from Lenham said: "Seeing how difficult it has been to get PPE to frontline healthcare workers, I wanted to do something to help, and being an engineer and a techie, I got together with some friends and built the app.

"It works by using a small amount of your computer's spare processing ability to solve complicated mathematical algorithms a bit like a very clever, much more specialised calculator.

"The longer you keep the app open, the more processor power you donate and the more algorithms get solved. As a reward for solving them, you earn cryptocurrency. This process is called mining and it's perfectly safe for your computer.

"The cryptocurrency is then converted into real funds and 100% of it is donated to the World Health Organization."

MineAMask has been up an running for just one week and has already generated enough money to create more than 1,000 masks.

"We're currently on 1,045 but that figure is growing by about 92 each day. The more people who download and run the app, the more masks will be created.

"If you’re ever worried about power consumption, you can turn down the amount of processing power you're donating."

The app is free and works on all windows or mac computers.

Mr Ward, who works on tech projects in his spare time, said the app took him just two weeks to create.

"I was inspired by news stories of local people and business making and donating PPE for frontline healthcare workers, but recognised that there are a lot of people who might not be able to do this.

"I wanted to create something that would allow everyone to help. I have worked with this kind of technology before and thought it was a easy free way for people to make an impact."

A man from Rainham has also created an app to help people avoid queues supermarkets during the coronavirus crisis.

For the latest coronavirus news and advice, click here.

Read more: All the latest news from Maidstone