We have been looking at the different facets of the impact of the pandemic on the world. So many things have been disrupted and we are all having to work together to find our way in the world. Last week I discussed healthcare and one of the positives was the advance of telecare for providers to patients. I also was discussing in an online marketing event how technology is how we communicate.
Everyone is telecommuting, for the most part, putting most of the world ahead on the learning curve. “There is one thing that is still giving relief to organizations and people around the world “Technology.” Without technology, everything would have been ten times harder for all of us right now. Many enterprises are being able to continue work by working from home. People who can provide services digitally are working, schools and colleges are working.
Overnight the world went online, everywhere! All students large or smaller were doing zoom classrooms. Though telecommuting has been happening for some time, suddenly every business was working from home. Zoom being our virtual conference room. Working from home and self-quarantined for about 2 months, my world of connections became virtual. Not only work, but my writing groups, marketing groups, and even social groups also went virtual! The Poetry bench in Balboa park I so I could suddenly attend! The MIT Sloan School of Management has been having 30 min sessions talking about the different impact of COVID on Business. One call had 1000+ attendees internationally.
That experience only helped me to understand that though there are so many negative issues with the pandemic, technology shined the light in the darkness of how to function. In one of my groups, a member is over 90 and came to the screen with the help of his aide. Families were having group chats and older folks got more comfortable with iPhone, iPad, texting to family members. Though the impact of not having visitors has been rough, being able to have virtual contact has saved the day! COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the technology sector: raw materials supply, disrupting the electronics value chain, and causing an inflationary risk on products. The disruption has caused an acceleration of remote working, and a rapid focus on evaluating and de-risking the end-to-end value chain. In addition, potential carbon emission reductions could result in a renewed focus on sustainability practices that have impacted Hardware/software, IT services, Semiconductors, Network equipment.
As the virus imposes heavy demands on healthcare systems, strains international supply chains, and changes the way we work, it will spur innovation in those areas.
There is a belief that; “the coronavirus pandemic will accelerate innovation significantly in four of the five fields while having little impact on space tech innovation (see figure 1). Respondents also believe that developed countries will be at the forefront of this innovation, while in the Middle East, Latin and South America, and Africa, innovation will be mostly unaffected or slightly hampered. Russia, an outlier, is expected to benefit only slightly the experts also anticipate that the most impactful innovations in the next two to five years would come from developments related to data and AI as well as to health technologies. They expect significant innovation in the future of work and in supply chains, too, but are slightly less optimistic. Only a tiny fraction of respondents believe that space commercialization technologies would see meaningful innovation soon. As the virus imposes heavy demands on healthcare systems, strains international supply chains, and changes the way we work, it will spur innovation in those areas. Likewise, as cloud infrastructure is forced to cope with increased traffic and public health professionals strive to harness massive datasets to fight the pandemic, developments in the fields of data and AI will accelerate.
This has really driven me to look at the whole dynamic. I was excited that this week’s seminar broached the subject of AI.” For serious organizations, the pandemic has provoked new recognition around both the potential and real value of high-performance ‘workplace analytics.’ For the distributed/dispersed digital workforce, the AI that matters most focuses more on ‘Augmented Introspection’ than ‘Artificial Intelligence”
I would love to hear your input on how if at all the pandemic has improved your relationship with Technology.
The global fight against the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly had the effect of increasing the presence of technology within our lives. From remote work to a renewed digital sociality to the use of platforms for entertainment or shopping. The use of digital services has increased exponentially. At the same time, over the past few months, there has been a growing debate regarding the potential and the critical issues of technology to contribute to the fight against the spread of coronavirus.
As far as domestic, these debates are framed within much wider frames. First of all, they had the merit of placing the emphasis on what is one of the classic themes of political philosophy: “security against rights” (including that of freedom and privacy).
It is only through an increase in trust in institutions, also by thinking of a new social pact between citizens and the state for the occasion, that volunteerism and therefore participation in traceability programs can be increased. Currently, this is one of the most important challenges in which the credibility of liberal democracies is at stake, in which the security and the body of rights and freedoms that distinguish us must be preserved and protected.