By Angathevar Baskaran
WHILE causing devastation around the globe, the Covid-19 crisis is also generating some positive spillovers. It is driving “leapfrogging” by technology users (public and private organisations, businesses, communities and individuals), influenced by the relative strength of national technology infrastructure.
As the pandemic has brought normal life to halt, people are forced to work from home. Organisations and individuals alike are suddenly forced to seek technology solutions in new ways: online learning, working through video conferencing, online retailing, live streaming, online art exhibitions and so on.
International forums like G20 and G7, and national government cabinet meetings are being convened online. Television and radio broadcasters, producers and technicians are forced to work from home and coordinate to provide live programmes, which was never done before.
Educators at universities and schools are required to teach entirely online, using a variety of tools such as Skype, Zoom, Google Meet, LinkedIn Learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and DingTalk. For example, in Indonesia, government schools are using a home-grown digital platform called WeKiddo extensively.
The “stay home” order forced most businesses and consumers to switch to online e-commerce models. There are numerous interesting developments around the world.
As the travel and tourism sector is hit the hardest, tourist businesses found creative ways to continue operations. For example, conservation projects like Tembe Elephant Park in South Africa, and GRACE gorilla conservation centre in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have switched to live streaming.
The remote Lapland (northern Finland) started 360-degree live streaming. Other tourist attractions like the island of Koh Samui in Thailand (beach and sunrise), Manitoba in Canada (Northern Lights), and Venice (quiet paved streets and canals) are on live feed.
The “flower blossom economy”, a major part of tourism in China and Japan has moved online. Live streaming of spring blossoms from different parts of China using TikTok has attracted millions of viewers.
The Covid-19 crisis has also created new business models for virtual exhibits and online galleries. The Art Basel Hong Kong, one of the world’s most important art fairs, was cancelled and moved to online exhibitions and attracted more audience than a physical fair. Shanghai Fashion Week (SHFW) was launched online in partnership with Alibaba’s Tmall.
China, the first to be hit by Covid-19, has witnessed a massive surge of “leapfrogging” by technology users. Massive investment in technology infrastructure over the years and the presence of e-commerce technology leaders such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and JD are major factors behind this.
As soon as the crisis hit, the hospitals, laboratories, and universities joined hands and used artificial intelligence (AI), big data (BD)and cloud computing (CC) to combat Covid-19.
AI was used for genome sequencing and early diagnosis of the disease. When severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) broke out in late 2002, it took months to map out the viral genome. For Covid-19, AI helped to do genome sequencing and share it with the rest of the world within a few weeks.
AI was also used for diagnosing Covid-19 patients by analysing the chest CT scans rapidly (CT Image Analytics Solutions). For example, it takes a doctor about 15 minutes to analyse 300 images of a CT scan, but AI takes just 10 seconds. AI was also used to device Chatbots to reduce workload on the hospital frontline management by automatically answering queries from the public and advising.
Extensive use of AI appears to have helped Chinese hospitals to arrest the spread of Covid-19 much quicker and save lives. Unfortunately, other countries appear to have failed to use these technology solutions because of the lack of CT scan capabilities, weak technology infrastructure and high cost.
Strict quarantine measures in China forced people to use food delivery apps massively. Many high-end restaurants launched online ordering. For example, in Chengdu, 700 restaurants started offering online delivery services.
Within two months, more than 110,000 restaurants had received the safe logo from food ordering app Meituan. Customers can scan a special QR code to check epidemic prevention health work done at a particular restaurant.
Now, to stop recurrence of Covid-19 in China, a mobile app called Close Contact Detector that alerts users when they come in contact with a confirmed coronavirus carrier is introduced. Everyone gets a QR Health code (either red, amber or green), that indicates level of mobility. Green is free to travel, amber means potential infection and is restricted travel, and red means infected and should be under quarantine.
In Malaysia, the Movement Control Order (MCO) forced many small businesses, particularly in the farming and F&B sectors, to move online. When it came to light that Cameron farmers were struggling to sell farm produce due to MCO, e-commerce platform Lazada quickly set up the Cameron Farmers/Lazada, MyFishman/Lazada and Mymarket2U/Lazada to help them.
Another intermediary StoreHub enabled F&B businesses to put the “entire store online in just a few clicks”. It reported a 45% increase in demand for F&B e-commerce platform/food delivery option. Numerous Facebook and WhatsApp ordering measures also emerged. More and more consumers started ordering fresh deliveries online than before the MCO.
The Covid-19 impact survey of 15,600 SMEs by SME Malaysia and BIZ SPHERE shows a 50% drop in retail sales and 2.5 million job losses. Over 60% of the surveyed firms said they need more than nine months to return to normal.
In this backdrop, the surge in online marketing for the farming sector and other SMEs and consumers’ willingness to buy their products online need to be harnessed. Having a strong presence online is key to future sustainability for these businesses and surviving another crisis.
Government and private intermediaries should facilitate dedicated e-commerce platforms for the farm produce sector. For example, Yimishiji in China provides an online platform for direct links between farmers and consumers who are conscious of knowing how the food they consume is produced. Similarly, a dedicated e-commerce platform for goods and services produced by social enterprises will help contribute significantly to reducing poverty.
In the education sector, even after the Covid-19 crisis ends, at least 30% of teaching should be online to foster creativity and innovation in teaching and learning. Working from home online can be maintained but by public and private organisations in order to cope with future crises.
It is imperative for the government to strengthen the technology infrastructure, particularly artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing (AIBDC) to effectively manage the post Covid-19 health security.
Some may argue that use of artificial intelligence and facial recognition is not desirable due to privacy issues. However, we should recognise that technology per se is neither good nor bad. It depends on how we use it.
The focus must be on maximising the “good” and minimising the “bad” aspects. The use of social media during the Covid-19 crisis illuminates this. While it enormously helps people to maintain social interaction during the shutdown, it also generates a huge volume of disinformation. No one is saying “ban social media”, but everyone agrees that it should be regulated to minimise negative impacts. — April 10, 2020
Dr Angathevar Baskaran is Associate Professor at the Department of Development Studies, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own
