Covid-19 pandemic has upended both physical and digital world at a rapid pace. The pandemic has created a lot of confusion across the globe and has seen a sudden surge in demand for certain products and services. The world has struggled to resume normal operations due to quarantine measures such as social distancing and lockdowns. This struggle of the world accelerated technological innovations and digitization to meet the demands induced by the pandemic.
The impact of COVID-19 is so vast that the entire world started rethinking business continuity by creating a hands-on business continuity plan to deal with unexpected disruptions like the pandemic that may arise in the future.
Technological Innovations
Engineering and technical innovations have become more vital than before because of the critical demand for engineering or technical solutions during the global pandemic. The speed of spreading the virus and its severity accelerated the demand for PPE kits, hand sanitizer, medical devices, and ventilators. The pandemic has ignited the need for new technical innovations and improvements in healthcare, supply chain, education, retail, finance, to manufacturing sectors.
In my opinion, the healthcare industry has benefited the most from engineering innovations than any other industry. Since health was the need of the hour, most engineers or innovators concentrated on the healthcare industry to develop innovative engineering solutions to the challenges created by the global pandemic.
Low-Cost Ventilators
The best technological innovation during the time was the low-cost ventilators as the first and second waves of the pandemic have created a lot of fatalities related to respiratory failure. Usually, ventilators available at hospitals were large and costly apart from the production lead time. During the pandemic, several innovators have developed low-cost and compact ventilators with a shorter production time.
Low-Cost PPE Kits
Medical Practitioners required PPE kits to safeguard them from infection including protective gowns, gloves, masks, and face shields. Because of the huge inflow of patients and fatalities of medical personnel during the pandemic, hospitals required a massive supply of PPE kits. Innovators from the private sector came forward to invent protective clothing made using surgical plastics. The testing booths for diagnosing COVID-19 were set up with HEPA filters that helped in reducing the use of surgical protective clothing and other medical supplies. These booths reduced the risk of infection to the healthcare personnel even after removing the protective gowns.
Portable Dialysis Machine
The social distancing norms prevented kidney patients to access hospital facilities during the pandemic. The major challenge was the accessibility to the dialysis machines that were placed in the hospitals. To bring a solution to this challenge, portable dialysis machines were developed so that patients can use these machines at home. Some of these portable machines needed a nurse who visited the patient’s home for administering the procedure of dialysis. Some are wearable models that can be attached to the patient’s body to perform the procedure.
Robotics
Robotics also played a major role in the pandemic as robots were used to disinfect surfaces, deliver medical supplies, monitor the vitals, remind people about preventive measures, etc. Telepresence robots were used in nursing homes that helped isolated elders to connect with their elders. Delivery robots were deployed to supply food and medical supply to homes with infected people. Some robots offer high-quality medical consultations for burns, cardiovascular issues, and stroke.
Digitization
The next prominent evolution is digitization as the pandemic has pushed people around the world to work from home. This has raised immediate challenges for several businesses, especially security issues. Other challenging transformations aroused during the global pandemic include business travel, operational changes, monetary transaction, face-to-face meetings, and other business processes. Certain organizations were already started their journey towards digitization even before the pandemic. For example, organizations with robust security solutions like VPN licenses, multifactor authentication, etc., were the ones who had a smooth transition during those testing times.
Cybersecurity
In my opinion, the most benefitted domain due to digitization is cybersecurity. During the pandemic, cybercrimes and cyber-attacks were very frequent resulting in a business crisis. Data breaches resulted in the loss or abuse of information and required end-to-end surveillance and risk analysis both at digital and physical entry points of organizations. These security challenges forced cybersecurity professionals to safeguard their organizations by creating incident response plans. Cloud-based security solutions helped organizations to protect their critical assets.
Artificial Intelligence
The adoption of AI plays a major role in digitization. AI is digitizing various industries such as Healthcare, Fintech, Retail, and Education. In the healthcare industry, AI can be used in clinical decisions, administrative applications, diagnosis, and treatment. The finance industry can use AI for customer service, trading advice, supply chain management, financial data analytics, fraud detection, credit risk assessment, and many more. Artificial intelligence is beneficial for the retail industry for making price decisions, optimizing product placement, enhancing demand forecasting, and making accurate data-driven business decisions. In the education industry, AI is helpful in personalized learning, customized tutoring, performance assessments, and in providing meaningful feedback to students.
Wrapping Up
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations to adapt quickly to run their businesses uninterrupted. Organizations have learned how to identify opportunities and take the initiatives to make the most out of these opportunities. Engineering innovation and digitization boosted sustainable growth in organizations by improving efficiency and productivity during the pandemic.