The 5 digital laws of PostCOVID-19

The COVID world has promoted the digitization of most activities. Due to the pandemic, it has been possible to observe how people's lives have been accelerated virtually in the professional dimension with colleagues, clients, suppliers, partners, and in general with all professional relationships. There has also been evidence of the digital acceleration of personal life, the way of relating to friends and family, how online purchases are made, how to manage with the public administration, or how training continues in digital environments.

All these experiences will be anchored both in the economic dimension and in the social dimension in PostCOVID-19. Many of these shreds of evidence were already present in PreCOVID-19, but in the face of the pandemic emergency they have accelerated, and it has allowed us to learn more about their implications to incorporate them solidly in a new normal.

In view of this new normality, and after analyzing and categorizing the applications and adoptions of information and communication technologies, the 5 new digital laws of PostCOVID-19 are proposed by the Innova Institute of La Salle-URL.

1. WHAT A BIT CAN DO, IT IS NO FOR AN ATOM TO DO (virtual and augmented reality)

Personal documents are in Dropbox, Google Drive, or One Drive; music on Spotify; photographs on mobile; the videos are already on YouTube. In other words, in companies, all processes and work files are virtualized. Everything digitizable is already on the way to the cloud.

Can physical experiences like trying clothes disappear? Virtual reality and augmented reality are definitely transforming people's shopping experience. The excuse "I don't buy on the internet because I want to try on my clothes" is transforming into: "I'm in the store, I try on my clothes and I buy them on the internet to not stand in line". Or also: "I test it online on a simulator that emulates my image and I buy it right there." In this way, shopping habits are also changing.

Visiting a museum, taking a tour, or visiting a live exhibition, can it disappear? During COVID, the virtualization of all museums and their collections has been assisted. In this context, are virtual visits going to replace face-to-face visits?

Now it is time to reflect on what other physical elements can disappear from the lives of people through their digitization.

2. DIGITIZATION OF RELATIONSHIPS (personal interactions)

Personal relationships are already inside your cellphone; families are more united than ever in chat; Digital contact with friends is continuous. In addition, electronic commerce is fully implemented and, consequently, traditional commerce is forced to formalize the relationship with its traditional clients virtually. Direct marketing through WhatsApp Business or other messaging applications is going to be the “new normal”.

Video conferencing platforms such as Webex or Zoom have been established as a medium for all kinds of relationships, reducing the need ”for physical movement. Teleworking makes its way and changes the way companies organize themselves.

In the personal dimension, social networks express what each one wants to project. Along these lines, the virtualization of relationships also leads to the need to manage personal brands through the internet, on Facebook, or on Instagram.

The online disinhibition syndrome must also be taken into account. The virtualization of relationships allows them to be much more fluid and fresh, which leads to the use of dating portals being generalized between two generations: that of Millennials and Generation Z, or Centennials.

In this sense, it is time to reflect on how relationships will be in the new normal.

3. NO ATOM WITHOUT A BIT

Despite everything, there are still assets and elements that will continue to be physically enjoyed. In personal life, items like connected houses, connected cars, connected cities. Even the bodies will be connected. If there is no connection to the physical elements there will be no way to access them, they cannot be shared or monitored. Everything will be 4.0 in POSTCOVID.

In this sense, “connection” is the keyword.

Inside houses. From the small smart things, our house needs a brain first, like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or some other application, to start linking the Smart Things wirelessly and make them work together, monitor them, achieve synergies or receive alerts when there are unexpected activities. In order to automate your devices, making them turn ON or OFF in certain circumstances, you need voice assistants for security and to activate functions, lighting guided by sensors that record natural exterior clarity, thermostats to acclimatize environments, door locks, refrigerators that warn when food is scarce. Similarly, the vehicles will become mobile energy stores that can be used at night when you get home when renewable sources of supply are necessary.

Inside companies. Technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, among others, allow real-time access to data and business intelligence, revolutionizing products, supply chains, and customer experience. Today, Big Data is located in the Supply Chain area, to reduce risks in the delivery of raw materials. This tool is used to analyze climate statistics for tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes, which enables companies to calculate the probabilities of delays; And by detecting a high possibility of delay, analytical results are used to identify backup suppliers and develop contingency plans to ensure that production is not disrupted by a natural disaster.

Combined Big Data with IoT analytics is also used to improve overall worker safety at the plant. By monitoring Health and Safety Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as the number of injuries and disease rates, near incidents, short and long-term absences, vehicle incidents, and property damage or loss during daily operations, you can work ahead of time to improve safety and quality of work life.

In the cities. Using cameras that detect the influx of people on express routes and thus allow optimal transport frequencies to be established. Parks that determine when to activate their irrigation systems by verifying, through sensors, the dryness of the soil. Waste collection with sensors in the containers to determine a more efficient route for collection. Even see people's recycling behaviors. Sending drones quickly to areas where accidents occur, with a direct connection to the medical professional or with a CPR kit to deal with emergencies immediately, jumping over the barriers of land traffic.

Near or far, but in contact. It is necessary to reflect on how this ability to be in permanent contact will be exploited.

4. FROM THE CLOUD TO THE EARTH

People expect to have what they need immediately. If it is a virtualizable product, it is already received or used by the digital channel. If it is a physical product, Amazon or Glovo are in charge of delivering it quickly. It will change the concept of production of goods from the factory to the people, and it will be from the cloud to the ground. In other words, the products will be digital and when they are needed in their physical version, they can be printed with 3D printers from home.

For those products that cannot be digitized (food, for example), technology will make access to them possible. You will no longer need to think about how to take the bags from the supermarket home since logistics companies will do it automatically when you finish your purchase. In addition, human efforts as means of transport will be omitted, since these will be carried out by drones and completely autonomously.

On the other hand, face-to-face learning processes will be migrated to completely digital learning processes, where people access the content they want, at the time and place they want, just with an internet connection.

The pandemic has accelerated certain processes of digital transformation, in which the “natural” state of everything will be digital (online) to bring it into our physical world (offline) when we need it.

How will having everything just one click away on our mobile screen, could transform people's lives?

5. NO VIRUSES WITHOUT BITS

COVID-19 requires active prevention of the spread of the contagion. This will require that systematic cleaning and hygiene measures be imposed in physical spaces. Social distances, masks, and protectors will also be necessary. Another key element will be the generalized tests of communities in coexistence and temperature detectors in order to monitor spaces without viruses.

The virus has prompted the use of technology to control and generate self-monitoring systems for the health of individuals. For example, the well-known autonomous diagnoses and treatments that control vital signals and variables through wristbands (heart rate) or sensors attached to the abdomen (to control glucose). In China, to control new outbreaks of the virus, once the containment has ended, companies such as Huawei and Deloitte use 5G technology to monitor the temperature with thermal images of people in public places, being able to massively identify those potential cases of fever in the population.

In Brazil, companies such as PalmaIoT integrate “internet of things” concepts to gel alcohol dispensers, with which it is possible to control through credentials who have cleaned their hands with gel alcohol, generating greater awareness about the hygiene of hands. On the other hand, the Danish company UVD Robots apps developed a robot with ultraviolet light to disinfect medical centers against viruses, bacteria, and microbes. The robot has eight lights that emit UV radiation capable of cleaning and disinfecting spaces in a more efficient way than people could do, thus preventing their exposure to the virus.

Technology will play a key role in preventing the spread of viruses, on the one hand, replacing humans with robots in potentially infectious places, and on the other, with automatic mechanisms for detecting and controlling vital signs early.

Will people be willing to give up their individual medical data for the sake of community health?