By Vibhav Gaur, Chief Business Officer, Ebizon
Covid-19 doesn’t seem to disappear soon. The entire world is reeling under its pressure. Numbers are surging by the day making it more challenging for healthcare professionals and the medical fraternity across the world.
Never in the past researchers were pushed to the limits as they have been now. They are working overtime in order to discover a certain Covid-19 treatment.
Looking at the grave situation, technology companies have started coming forward. They feel it’s foolish to sit back, hoping the medical troupes will do all. Economies are hit, businesses are closed. The world is seeing the slowest of slowdown ever.
Startups and young professionals realise that this is the time when people want their creativity to come to the fore. It’s easier to brainstorm in the sun, but not when the clouds are building up. Taking the inspiration from the situation, they are coming up with a unique idea each day.
We bring to light seven amazing innovations in the field of technology. These products mainly aim to help people and businesses in grocery, essential services, health, fitness, online learning, ecommerce, workplace tools among others.
What makes these special is because they are helping mankind in its biggest crisis ever.
So let’s get started!
- Hygiene Smart Band
Not long ago, the Seattle based company, Slightly Robot, owned by two brothers and a friend, launched a wearable device in a wristband. The gadget was made to keep people away from frequent skin-picking and nail-biting.
In December 2019, when the company got the news of Covid-19 hitting their shores, they quickly redesigned their device to a brand new invention, actually another smartband, the Immutouch.
The band was coded in a way that the users were alerted by a sound whenever they tried touching their face.
The company believes that Immutouch is a big breakthrough, especially at this time when people are advised to maintain serious hygiene. Given the fact that they had the set up ready, shaping the device to fight Covid-19 wasn’t much difficult.
- Temperature Checker
Scylla, the US company that specialises in AI tools and technology makes detection tools to track possession of ammunition by entrants in universities and cafes.
When the news of Covid-19 broke out, they quickly made small upgrades to their software, enabling it to start recording human temperature. In its new form, the device sends alerts if it notices someone having fever.
The idea was well received by both private and public institutions as they went ahead with their preparation for Covid-19. In fact, many have already placed orders asking the company to install their device in their premises as soon as possible.
- E-commerce Deliveries
The ecommerce industry has long been mulling about using drones for deliveries but the idea hasn’t got much support from e-tailers across the world. Covid-19 has brought millions of people under lockdown.
JD.com, the Chinese ecommerce company based out of Beijing, got into the action pretty early. Not only it conducted feasibility studies on drone delivery but carried out trials real quick.
The company also obtained necessary approvals to fly its drones in distant airspaces. What this did was that the people who ordered items from the remotest of areas started getting deliveries on time.
Ecommerce sales are skyrocketing. Everything is high on demand. Estores are not missing out on opportunities either. Web stores are extending their presence on mobile by launching quick mobile apps for grocery items including liquor, essential goods and other services.
- Telemedicine
Though mobile phones were mainly an invention of the late 1990s but guess what? It’s these devices that have made Telemedicine so very popular in this Covid-19 era.
Due to lockdown, people in most countries are confined to their homes. They are advised to speak with their doctors over the phone instead of visiting them.
Governments in most countries at this time want their healthcare staff to stay ready for Covid-19 by shedding off other duties. Telemedicine has greatly helped the already strained doctor community. It is guiding its patients using mobile phones. Patients too are using payment apps to pay the consulting fees.
- Online Learning Apps
Premier institutions owe their reputation to their ability to visualize the future. They keep preparing themselves ahead of time.
We need more universities like Harvard Business School today, who are acceptant to the concept of online classes. They know how to make it work instead of worrying about losing productivity.
Remote learning was never valued the way it is now. Schools are shut, examinations are canceled, kids are promoted to higher grades without evaluation but we know that the trend is not here to stay.
We want our kids to get back to learning at the earliest. And this is why people have started exposing them to online learning. Teachers too need to make a living at the end of the day.
Online learning thus has become extremely popular with almost all education startups calling Coursera, EdX and Udemy like shots.
- Video Conferencing Apps
Zoom is yet another app which is not the byproduct of Covid-19 but the video based conferencing app has added millions of users to its database during the last few months, making it perhaps the biggest business success of Corona times.
Today, Zoom has a download tally of over 100 million users plus.
The US based enterprise, in its bid to contribute, relaxed its plan, helping more users to benefit from the service. Zoom has a diverse user base. From kids to elderly, doctors, musicians, corporates, teachers, businesses, they all hook up to Zoom and Zoom like apps when the day sets in.
- Online Meeting & Cloud Software
LogMeIn is a popular provider of SaaS and cloud based networking services. Organisations and big concerns have increased their reliance on similar services.
High profile IT, finance and banking professionals have increased their working hours using video conferencing tools such as GoToWebinar, GoToMeeting beside others.
While remote working gives them more working hours, tools like LogMeIn seamlessly convert these hours to 100% productivity.
Final Words –
The list above is only a glimpse of what is actually happening in the field of technology. Never ever in the past, we witnessed such an intensity and urgency.
Each day unleashes hundreds of fresh new discoveries from individuals, volunteers, non-profits, researchers and businesses. They rightly realize that Covid-19 is going to be the way of life, at least for some time, so it makes sense to learn to live with it.
We are into the sixth month of the mystery virus and still don’t have a clue to deal with it. A possible vaccine is at least 12 months away. For herd immunity to come into picture, the world needs to see the recovery rate catching up with the number of infections. Clearly we are left with too many questions but too little answers.
But having said that, humankind is in no mood to give up just yet. Who knows these inventions might be the stepping stone to defeating the Corona scare, out and in full.
About the Author
Vibhav Gaur is a first generation entrepreneur, currently Chief Business Officer at Ebizon, a mid sized software company focused on Digitalization, AI and Cloud Computing.
This post is great! I read your blog fairly often and you are always coming out with some very nice stuff.
I’ll make sure to share this on my FB page and my followers should
like this also. Keep up the nice work!