Here’s how the emerging tech ecosystem is combating the COVID-19

6 min readApr 17, 2020

The COVID-19 has changed almost everything in our lives and nothing is going back to normal after this. Amid the crisis, having people informed is the most important thing YellowBlocks can do.

We realize that you have already swamped by coronavirus coverage and it’s making you feel stressed. That’s why we will only focus on two main things: The stakeholders’ movements, and Tech initiatives that might help win the fight against the virus.

We have curated from the best sources to keep you updated with qualified content about how technologies have helped combat the virus and saved our lives. Therefore, you can have a thorough — yet carefully filtered overview of what’s going on outside in a social distancing period.

How can technologies help us navigate the gloomy scenario?

Social media platforms

Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, the world now must combat the “infodemic”, which represents the problem of misinformation and transmission of content published online. In particular, those social media platform companies must sort, rank, and prioritize true and reliable information to deal with misinformation, just the way Pinterest has already introduced headers and links on its homepages with the latest updates about the coronavirus. [See details]

Artificial Intelligence

Some projects in which AI is being explored as a diagnostic tool or used to help find a vaccine is in the very early stages. However, making the most of AI will take a lot of data, time, and coordination between many different people. In other words, AI will not save us from the coronavirus now, but there’s every chance it will play a bigger role in future epidemics, where AI could help us in three main areas: prediction, diagnosis, and treatment. [See details]

3D Printing

Due to the pandemic that has strained the global supply chains for critical medical products, a number of digital manufacturing companies are rushing in to meet immediate needs. Until now, there’s been collaborative efforts to produce guidelines for producing 3D-printed test swabs across U.S institutions, FDA and a Tech company. Said the company, it could rapidly add more printers and scale-up daily production of swabs well beyond 100.000, depending on the medical needs as the outbreak escalates in the weeks to come. [See details]

Smart-city

During the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, the partnership between governments and private sectors has never been so strong, which can be marked by official agreements in terms of Smart-city’s vision in the East Asia region. Meanwhile, the virus has accelerated the enhancement in the infrastructures of Smart-city across countries to directly serve humans against the Covid19 outbreak, which shows the efficiency in China, U.S, and Vietnam. It’s believed that reaching out to the highest level of Smart-city “Hyperconnected city” will unlock the full economic, social, environmental, and business value of an urban area and equip it with fundamental measures to best prepare for whatever upcoming pandemic. [See details]

What rises from this downtime?

The coronavirus is still widely visible and is significantly impacting a number of industries. However, there are some industries that stand to benefit through the crisis. The COVID-19 Commerce Insight tracker’s new data shows pure-play E-Commerce revenue up 37%, compared to the same time last year. In the Healthcare industry, according to Nielsen, medical products like hygienic and medical mask sales are up by more than 300%.

(*) Updated September 2020: E-commerce stores that rely heavily on the dropshipping suppliers, however are facing problems since the outbreak of the disease.

In the streaming service industry, Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ have also seen atypical gains in subscribers in the first quarter of 2020. Even with Zoom — a rising virtual platform yet confronting privacy concerns has observed its intensive growth in the number of daily users to over 200M and its stock has soared nearly 100% in 2020.

It takes the ecosystem involvement

The COVID-19 pandemic constitutes an unprecedented challenge with very severe socio-economic consequences. A coordinated and comprehensive strategy is necessary to deal with health emergency needs, to support economic activity and to prepare the ground for the recovery. Several movements have already been taken across countries at every department level.

The U.S Food and Drug Administration has recently updated its enforcement policies for ventilators and other respiratory devices, allowing for limited modifications without additional regulatory submissions during the public emergency and providing guidance for companies that don’t usually produce medical devices to step in at this critical moment.
The Chinese government has introduced the ‘Three Batches of Tax & Fee Incentives’ including frontline support, SMEs support, and enterprises’ burden discharge.
The Vietnam P.M has decided to issue incentives (in the form of tax breaks, delayed tax payments, and delayed land-use fees for businesses) — worth VND27 trillion (US$1.16 billion) — to dampen the economic fallout of the virus.
In India, VCs and startups CEOs have joined hands to launch COVID-19-focussed Grant, and some of the venture capitalists (VCs) do appear to be doing alright as VC firms raised US$21b last quarter despite COVID-19 chaos.
Meanwhile, Apple and Google are jointly building software into iPhone and Android devices to help track the spread of coronavirus.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Hackster.io and our partner SGInnovate have just announced the COVID-19 Detect and Protect Challenge that calling on the global community to design open source solutions to join the fight against COVID-19 and stand to win up to $1,500 in prizes.

We also see the good movements such as big tech companies are finally in the good books of European policymakers; the Century Tech, an AI-driven learning platform for schools, made its platform free for all schools and students; and even from individuals as scientists and technologists from all disciplines lending their expertise to the fight.

What’s next?

Sign up for our newsletter so that we can keep you updated with clear and profound explanations on topics like COVID-19 mortality rate by age and the Insights on the opportunities for change during the pandemic in terms of Smart City, and reporting on how cash and stuffs in your pocket can drive you to the threat of coronavirus infection, how Chinese government seeks the help of tech giants to track coronavirus using color-coded QR codes, and how the government and private sectors collaborate to fight the pandemic and “infordemic” through a case study.

Sources: technologyreview.com, e27.co, qz.com, nielsen.com, economictimes.com, fda.gov, ccinsight.org, forbes.com, latimes.com

About YellowBlocks
YellowBlocks is the trusted Vietnam tech gateway to provide local insights, premiere networks, and business / marketing / tech strategies for leading companies in emerging tech (ABCD — AI/ML/Robotics, Blockchain, Cloud, Data).

Subscribe: yellowblocks.org/countmein