COVID 19 – Innovations Stand in Solidarity with Fighting the Corona Crisis
Reading Time: 8minutes
The entire world is fighting a micro entity, which has affected all aspects of routine life.The sudden prohibition on socializing, to control the spread of Coronavirus, has left everyone with just one option – stay at home! It may be manageable for some, but all the social butterflies must already be feeling like stranded on an island, yearning to be with their people.
At this time when the life has toppled over the bush, it is wiser to collect twigs from the bush and make a nest. That’s what some smart companies are doing, realizing that every single effort will make a difference. They are doing their part not to fight the virus directly, but to make things easier for everyone. Let’s take a dive into what are they up to!
At this time when lockdowns, social distancing, and isolation are the only options left to control the epidemic, people are bound to stay home, come what may. It is very likely for anyone to feel lonely and depressed. To make it easier for the users coping up with the lockdown, realizing the need to feel ‘connected’ better despite distanced physically, Instagram announced the addition of a feature ‘Co-Watching’, which is about browsing the app even while on chat with friends and family. Means, you don’t need to end the call to browse the app for any reason. In fact, you can browse along with the one you’re talking too. So, while you chat or talk, you can even manage your account. Yes, this is an effort by Instagram and Facebook to enhance connectivity between the users and their loved ones, being far away due to the lockdown led by this pandemic.
This way, the people will feel more connected than ever, coping up well to stay isolated so that the spread of this virus is caught hold of.
As stated by Instagram:
“To help people stay connected, we’ve launched media sharing, a new feature that allows you to view Instagram posts together with your friends over video chat. You can start a video chat by tapping the video chat icon in the Direct inbox or in an existing Direct thread, then view saved, liked and suggested photos/videos by tapping the photo icon in the bottom left corner in an ongoing video chat.”
According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, that’s the biggest role that Facebook can play by encouraging people to consider social distancing orders seriously and follow the advisory.
Alongside, Instagram also unveiled the plans of working strictly on the content about COVID-19 shared widely. Unless the content is produced by an authorized source, it won’t be shared further. There will also be a sticker feature that would promote only the authenticated information.
“We will continue to prioritize safety, connecting people with accurate information, and encouraging support as the COVID-19 outbreak evolves,” the company cited about the object of this feature.
Not only this, the company banned the commercials selling face masks, hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes and COVID-19 test kits. “This is another step to help protect against inflated prices and predatory behavior we’re seeing,” tweeted Rob Leathern, Director of Product at Facebook.
The most proactive efforts from any social media channel, made in solidarity with a cause, have always been witnessed from Facebook. The outbreak of coronavirus is also responded to, the same way. No doubt, the pandemic has hit the most vulnerable classes of society.
Considering their plight, a feature Community Help is generated in Facebook which can be assessed by people in the COVID-19 Information Center. The objective of this global-scale feature is to let people offer help to those affected by the pandemic. They can also donate to non-profit organizations.
Quarantined & Quality-Timed on Netflix
Watching movies together, chomping on popcorns, and sharing comments on the flick, is what a quarantined movie-buff would miss badly. Well, not now!
Netflix Party, a free extension for the Google Chrome browser has been developed by Netflix to let those lonely souls come together and watch movies together. The browser allows you to play the movie scenes the way you want, and that too, staying in sync with your partners in crime. That saves on the hard work of trying to synchronize with everyone. Not only this, to share thoughts and comments on the scenes, a side chat bar is also provided. The chat bar will also keep notifying about new joinees. So, you can comment, laugh, tease and giggle without missing the core objective movie-watching with your friends and family.
All you need to do this is – ensure that everyone in your group has a Netflix account, and a downloaded Google extension. Of course, you will be required to invite everyone for Netflix access. In case, they don’t own the account, they can avail the 30-day trial as new subscribers.
WhatsApp Takes to Task the Infodemic Led by Pandemic
Ever since the bug hit this planet, the internet is flooded with news of all kinds – real ones, fake ones, and some really creative ones. The mischievous souls have already created enough panic among the masses, misinforming them of corona threat. Not only this, it has developed perceptions about the handling of this virus.
Like for instance, several news that surfaced up recently were –
‘Covid-19 can be cured by ingesting fish-tank cleaning products.’
‘Cristiano Ronaldo and the pope tested positive.’
‘Coronavirus was developed as a result of a failed biology experiment.’
Well, for some, sharing these snippets may be just be a matter of fun, while for some wise souls it may be something to ignore. But for a major chunk it is received on a serious note. Consider it their gullible attitude, or a feeling of anxiety, or a state of hopelessness, they simply start following it all the baloney of time.
Taking this matter to task, WhatsApp is soon to come up with a fact checking feature that will ask you if you wish to upload it on Google, so that the authenticity of the news can be checked.
The most popular app has always updated itself to provide better messaging experience for its users. Apart from adding a feature to allow the users to pick gifs and images from the web, while on WhatsApp chat, WhatsApp is now up to adding to its features, the advanced search option. This is to search of the ‘Frequently Forwarded Messages,’ the suspect fake news on the web, directly from the chat, so that the users don’t feel reluctant enough to do so, as coming out of app just to authenticate the news may seem quite an avoidable task for them.
It’s great, isn’t it!
The feature though is not put on yet, but will soon be there as one of the special features of the app.
“We are working on new features to help empower users to find out more information about the messages they receive that have been forwarded many times. This feature is currently in testing, and we look forward to rolling it out in the near future,” cited a spokesperson from app.
To curb down this mushrooming menace, the World Health Organization has also collaborated with WhatsApp in their mission to provide only authentic information, and started a ‘Health Alert’ service through the app.
The free new service is designed to address to all the query from people about coronavirus, by providing prompt, and substantiated information within 24 hours, worldwide.
Alongside, WhatsApp has also announced to donate $1 million to the International Fact-Checking Network of Poynter Institute, to stop the flow of all misleading information about the pandemic.
Wrapping It Up
Necessity is the mother of invention! And when the global crisis strikes, these inventions become the trends, only to be the starting points of something transformational for the entire world.
Over the past two months, the social media and entertainment platforms have proactively participated in aiding their users to face the crisis easily. They are doing their best to update themselves, building tools to root out all the misleading information, determining the reputed sources, and encouraging the masses to connect with each other in technologically innovative ways, to pull out the loneliness from the ‘stay at home’ time.
The current time may seem difficult, but these experiences are surely going to remind us of the most unlikely that we have faced together, and of course, the technological innovations during this course of time that helped us hopefully come unscathed out of this crisis.
Joe leads the company’s strategy development and team building processes to formulate and enact the mission and goals. His strategic decisions involve the commitment of various resources for the fulfilment of goals and purposes of the organization, with a positive impact on its various aspects of growth.
With over 30 years of leadership experience, Joe has lead transformation projects, new business ventures, and execution of change management strategies.
In his previous role in C/C Financial Corp, a start-up financial technology business, Joe served as President & CEO. The start-up was scaled up and acquired by a large publicly traded company.
Joe started PeakFormance Leadership Consulting, a leadership and strategy advisory firm that specializes in helping busy executives develop high-performing team and organizations. His experience and proven strategies have helped him lead organization development projects with Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium size start-ups.
With a strong passion for leadership, Joe has demonstrated the ability to develop cohesive teams, aligned and collaborative teams that achieve extraordinary results. Joe’s passion for leadership and team-building and vast experience enable him to connect with executive leaders and partner with them to improve performance.
Joe holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Minnesota State University, and an MBA in Organization Leadership from Walden University. He enjoys spending time traveling, golfing and training for Ironman triathlon competitions.
WILLIAM ANSAH
Head of Africa Operations, Tarika Group
20+ years of professional experience
William Yaw Ansah, Chairman, and CEO, Origin8 Limited in Ghana is an accomplished executive with experience spanning multiple sectors – Publishing, International NGOs, Education, Consultancy, and more.
Most recently, William was appointed as Course Manual Author Monitor for Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana. He was also appointed as a Member of the Management Committee, School of Arts, University of Ghana. He is also a Member of the Institute of Directors Ghana, an Accredited Member of the Institute of Public Relations, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketers, U.K
Over the years, he has been a mentor and advisor to a number of new ventures in Ghana and has trained several organizations such as SSNIT, Ghana Revenue Authority, Ghana Water Company Limited, National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme among others.
William has authored a number of books such as Simple English for Senior High Schools in Ghana, Simple English books for Primary Schools in Ghana, and Simple English books for kindergarten, among others.
William received his Master’s degree in Global Marketing from the University of Liverpool, the U.K, and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Ghana, Ghana. He started his career in Ghana as an Instructor, Consultant, and later management member of Afram Publications, Sahabia Publications, Comland Ghana, Origin8 Limited to mention a few.
SACHIN AGRAWAL
Founder & CEO, Tarika Group
20+ years of professional experience
Sachin has over twenty years of experience managing innovation and development of solutions and optimizing complex business processes; Business & Technology Architecture and Integrations. His proficient leadership and exceptional communication skills, technical expertise, combined with industry experience have delivered extraordinary results for his firm and clients.
Sachin instituted Tarika Technologies to support businesses by implementing a strong process-oriented system and the virtual CIO model, managing a team of offshore and onsite professionals. He performs complete business and technology assessment, advises on Enterprise Architecture and provides solutions for mid to large companies, globally. Under his leadership, Tarika Technologies has acquired several key accounts, providing Enterprise Solutions, Infrastructure Solutions (PaaS, IaaS, SaaS), Software & Web Solutions and Mobile Applications.
In addition, Tarika Technologies provides technology and communications infrastructure set up and has successfully launched several products in the ERP, Communication, Entertainment & Media domains. Today, Tarika stands as a global company with presence in America, Asia, and Africa.
Sachin is the CIO to a leading firm in Bethesda, Maryland USA that provides acquisition support services; and technical advisor to the Crisis Center Hotline located in the state of Maryland in the United States. During his career, he also served as Director of Information Technology at a prestigious infrastructure management firm in the DC area providing IT consulting, infrastructure design and enterprise solutions for small to large corporations all around the mid-Atlantic region, as well as governmental organizations. His innovation in business process has led to a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Offices for one of his clients.
Sachin’s keen interest in International business has formed key alliances and relationships worldwide apart from just Technology. In recent times, he has partnered with Origin8 Limited, a leading PR & Advertisement firm located in Ghana, extending all the products and services offered by Tarika to the African region. As an integral part of this partnership, Origin8 will be heading the sales and marketing of EBIMS AirWatch in the West African market; a cloud-based ERP solution by Tarika, supporting the needs in the Media industry providing real time strategic planning, monitoring, management of operations, automation of collections and complete digitization of payments through integrations to local payment gateways. He is also the Chief Technology Advisor for Origin8 Limited, driving advanced digital solutions for clients in Ghana; and introducing customized ERP for businesses across West Africa.
His keen interest in international business has formed key alliances and relationships worldwide in areas aside technology. Other areas of his expertise include managing and streamlining business processes, vertically independent Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure Management, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, high-level network and systems architecture, design and development capabilities of secure distributed applications for both private as well as governmental organizations.
Sachin holds a Master of Science in Information Architecture with highest honors; a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Associates in Computer Engineering Technology from Capitol Technology University in Maryland, USA. In his leisure, Mr. Agrawal enjoys playing musical instruments and practices Haidong Gumdo, the Korean swordsmanship, as a senior martial arts practitioner. His personal blog can be found at www.sachinagrawal.com.
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