The sudden emergence of coronavirus or COVID-19 has left the world alarmed and confused. Out of 195, the virus has infected 192 nations across the globe.
It has also created a massive stir across the socio-economic landscape in numerous countries. Furthermore, businesses are struggling to meet their goals and keep up with these drastic changes.
94% of the Fortune 1000 are seeing coronavirus supply chain disruptions.
– Fortune
Most businesses today just cannot go on as usual and will have to adapt to the continued disruptions. Closing down of workplaces and remote work are emerging as best practices to flatten the curve and reduce the spread of the virus.
Technology playing a pivotal role
While businesses are adopting various precautions to keep everything safe in their new workplaces, technology can play a pivotal role in controlling the situation through innovative applications.
Tech giants around the world are using AI, Blockchain, Big Data and other technologies in their fight against the pandemic.
This proves to be a significant attempt to control the situation, facilitate healthcare workers, identify potential threats, effectively treat patients and develop vaccines. Here is a list of companies using technology to build innovative solutions to fight against the coronavirus.
BlueDot
BlueDot is a Canadian software company and amongst the first to identify the emerging risk of COVID-19. The company managed to sense the healthcare crisis days before WHO through their insights software. BlueDot has built a software designed to track, locate and conceptualize infectious disease spread. The software uses Big Data and AI to collect analyze data from thousands of sources and detect infectious diseases as soon as possible.
IBM, Microsoft and WHO
Organizations including WHO, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and other companies have partnered to build a blockchain-based open data hub called MiPasa built by a blockchain company HACERA. The platform aims to precisely and quickly identify infected people and infection hotspots around the world. The platform will enable secure data transfer amongst individuals, hospitals and other authorities.
Alibaba and Baidu
Alibaba and Baidu have made their technologies available to support organizations worldwide to fight against the virus. Baidu has made its Linearfold Algorithm available to scientific and medical teams to fight the pandemic. The AI-based algorithm is much faster than the traditional systems at identifying the virus’s structure.
Facebook has unveiled tools to help researchers and healthcare organizations to track the spread of the virus. As part of the ‘Data for Good’ program, the company is also offering detailed maps on population movement to help understand the coronavirus crisis. In addition to maps, together with Google and Twitter, Facebook is working to identify and eliminate fake news around the virus spread.
Nanox
Nanox is an Israel-based Medtech company which has developed a mobile digital X-ray system, called as Nanox System, that uses AI cloud-based software to diagnose infections and help prevent the virus spread.
Key takeaways
Technology has been critical in helping healthcare experts fighting against the virus. Tech giants, startups and researchers around the world are putting technology to work from identifying the threat to curb the effects of the crisis.
As the virus continues to spread, there’s still a long way to go before the world is able to defeat the pandemic. These technological applications are sure to be the silver lining.
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