If there is anything that this pandemic has taught the world, it is the need for resilience and preparedness. Just about every organization, every individual, and every business has had to deal with the effects of the virus. As much as the magnitude of the crisis almost brought the world to its knees, it has also spurred innovations in different sectors, and especially in technology.
Working from home
For instance, when the largest population of office workers started working from home, there was a great demand for enablers for the same. Here we saw huge improvements to already existing remote conferencing facilities as well as the development of new ones. The contribution that this has had on the work world can never be estimated. If we were all sent home and had no means of going on with work, we would be witnessing collapse of businesses to a scale way bigger than what we have been unfortunate to witness.
Education
Covid-19 has had such an effect on our children’s learning that the children and their parents will take years to recover. Keeping kids home for almost a year when they could be learning has a big effect not only on their education but their psychological well-being.
It is therefore great to see that soon after schools closed, there were improvements to existing remote learning solutions, as well as the development of new ones. One such solution that has existed for years even before is Shupavu291 – an SMS-based solution with which children can keep up with the Kenyan curriculum even without smart phones. After kids started staying home, there was a huge leap in the numbers of pupils who are using Shupavu.
Different schools also stepped up to have their students continue with learning via video. We have seen even graduations being virtual and this is encouraging because as much as we have lost a lot, we have not lost everything.
Shopping
One of the most frustrating things about Covid is our inability to move around. It is this lack of movement that almost brought economies to their knees. Movement is required for farming and trade to continue. Night movement is necessary because that is when farm produce travels to different parts of the country, for people to find it in the markets in the morning. So without movement, shopping, and therefore trade, were severely curtailed.
But we have also seen technology companies rally around the problem and bring about solutions for digital shopping and home deliveries. In Kenya for example, we have seen the increase of supermarket remote shopping options, and we have seen courier services introduce the personal shopper. All this is through apps on the phone and this is a big thumbs up to technology.
Although these were in use here and there before the pandemic, the leap in demand and efficiency has seen technology companies add onto their features. These innovations and improvements to older tech are here to stay and any improvements are always a win.