The pandemic has shifted our mindset on all fronts. Going digital, a luxury for some in the past has now become the mandatory norm in order to keep up with the changing times.
From changes in education to how we deal with our health, picking out your next meal to how we transact our business, the restrictions proved to be a means to an end: to let concepts in technological development roam free.
Given the circumstance, the pandemic has all but expedited our exodus to the digital world.
And the migration has not only started with big-ticket projects and ideas from silicon valley giants or fortune 500 companies, it has also trickled down to everyday consumer interaction.
These tech trends, given birth during pandemic, fruitfully served their purpose, and in the years to come, will continue to drive growth in various areas of industrial, socio-economic, and civic concerns.
Facebook’s rebranding to Meta with the end goal of venturing into the beyonds of the metaverse, we are sandwiched between the innovations of the past few years into the full-blown deep dive into artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual and reality, 5G, blockchain, and cute NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) that are all the craze nowadays and the years to come.
With these in mind, here are the useful tech innovations we can utilize even after this pandemic passes.
Remote Work, Distance Learning
The pandemic caught all of us off guard, quite literally for instance, when most of us weren’t prepared for those morning meetings early on the COVID-19 lockdowns. Technical difficulties aside, remote work seemed to, pun intended, work. Research even says work productivity rose an average close to 50% during the work from home scheme.
The education sector also took the heaviest hit when restrictions were imposed. Students had to make do with what available gadgets they had, lucky if they had good-to-go hand-me-downs, as the abrupt shift to distance learning revealed the limitations in tech, especially in our public school system.
But even with the limitations, video Conferencing apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams helped bridge this problem, and will surely still be part of our daily lives in the years to come.
Retail, Customer Service, Finance
With the change in everyday movement, comes changes in lifestyle, thus, a shift in purchasing preferences. Ordering food online became a habit and the term “Netflix and Chill” became a regular affair rather than a catchphrase.
During the early onset of the lockdowns, many first-time entrepreneurs popped up and established micro-enterprises. With most of these businesses focusing on food whose owners coming from very different backgrounds, it was a leap of faith for some, but this proved the innovations that can be made during the pandemic.
All of these were made easier with social media as the main platform of interaction between buyers and sellers. From live selling of clothes to accessories, owners utilized social media to its full extent to market their products.
But as a whole, may it be informal or data coming in from big retail brands, the overall e-commerce industry saw a substantial uptick during the pandemic.
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, businesses and consumers increasingly “went digital.” Consumers and businesses alike provided more activity online to raise e-commerce’s share of global retail trade from 14% in 2019 to about 17% in 2020.
Chatbots, an optional feature on some websites back then, became a necessary addition to any retail site. This technology uses AI to give out basic information to users instantly without the need for a human customer representative. With machine learning thrown into the mix, these chatbots have become more and more efficient in answering queries.
With the fear of contracting the virus through physical means, digital payments were the preferred way to transact. It was instant, customers could pay the exact amount every time, and top up was a breeze. Contactless payments provided ease of use while banks offered branchless transactions and needed up digital features of their services.
Healthcare
With COVID-19 in mind, there was a bevy of healthcare tech innovations that cropped up during the pandemic. To name a few, investments for data-driven healthcare products were made such as wearables and VR to make health care more accessible during the pandemic.
Telehealth technology took the helm in this healthcare advancement, while continuous and remote diagnostics as well as teletherapy, were readily available. Establishments also invested in automatic alcohol spraying machines, even thermal imaging cameras, and adopted the use of contact tracing apps.
According to the Asian Development Bank, the focus of innovators in the health industry focused on tools for surveillance, supply chain management, and clinical training. These innovations, per the ADB, gradually turned to solutions diagnosing patients and efforts to develop a vaccine.
Entertainment and Online Gaming
Subscription to streaming services during the pandemic actually surpassed one billion according to the Motion Picture Association of the United States. This comes as no surprise as the worldwide audience had nothing to do while on lockdown.
Apart from movies and tons of series to choose from, people also had the chance to try out virtual events, with production companies making use of 360-degree camera technology to capture all the action. Using available broadcast software, even small-scale production went online and provided entertainment to ease the tension of the pandemic.
Online gaming, social media, and entertainment, for some reason, were able to amalgamate to produce a video games industry worth over $90 billion in 2020 alone. This number is expected to rise to $256.97 billion by 2025.
Fans flocked to Facebook Gaming, Twitch, and other live streaming platforms to watch their favorite streamers. This created interest in games where you could earn real money or what is called play-to-earn games.
Connected to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, buzzwords from not so long ago, but now a vital part in an informal gaming economy hitched onto by Filipinos who had time or money to spare. P2e games like Axie Infinity gained popularity during the pandemic, where “scholarships” provided necessary funds for those affected financially by the pandemic.
Middling investors also dipped their feet into crypto and non-fungible tokens or NFTs—unique pieces of digital art, whether music, image, or drawing that any potential buyer could own and stamp their ownership through “minting.”
These digital assets could potentially be sold for tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Pak’s ‘The Merge’ takes the cake, selling just this December 2021 for a whopping $92 million dollars from a total of 300,000 bids.
The pandemic may have caused misery and a total change in the lives of many, but it did bring about the ingenuity of the human race to continue and trudge on despite the challenges. These tech trends just show how the world can cope and even use this opportunity to take a step back and zoom out the situation, creating innovations that will continue to impact and shape the world even after the pandemic.