Managing COVID - 19 Crisis with Exponential Technology Innovations

Linear thinking, based on the fundamental premise that there are limited resources available, confines us to a world of incremental innovation. The emergence of disruptive technologies is fast changing the tech landscape – a 2013 report by McKinsey showed how twelve technologies — including the mobile Internet, autonomous vehicles, and advanced genomics—have the potential to truly reshape the world in which we live and work (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/disruptive-technologies). 

Convergence of such disruptive technologies allows us to conceive of exponential innovations that are not constrained by the availability of resources.  Non-linear thinking, inspired by the belief that resource constraints can be overcome through technology innovations, allows us to create abundance in a resource-constrained world. Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, in their book Abundance,  document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, infinite computing, ubiquitous broadband networks, digital manufacturing, nanomaterials, synthetic biology, and many other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous two hundred years. We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp.

Let us take a quick look at how these disruptive technologies are helping us to manage the COVID – 19 crisis.

IoT

IoT can be used to trace the origin of an outbreak. Overlaying geographic information system (GIS) on IoT mobile data from infected patients can (a) assist epidemiologists to search for patient zero and (b) help identify all the persons who have come into contact with the infected patients and may, therefore, also be infected. IoT can also be used to ensure patient compliance during quarantine. The scalability of IoT also comes in handy for monitoring a large number of patients who are high-risk enough to warrant quarantine but not serious enough to warrant in-hospital care. With IoT, the patients can have their temperatures taken and upload the data with their mobile devices to the cloud for analysis. This way, healthcare workers can not only collect more data using less time but also reduce the chance for cross-infection with the patients.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/immunology/articles/using-the-internet-of-things-to-fight-virus-outbreaks-331992

Data Analytics powered by AI and ML

Machine Learning (ML) is helping us to handle the COVID – 19 crisis in many significant ways - Identify who is most at risk, Diagnose patients, Develop drugs faster, Predict the spread of the disease, Understand viruses better,  Map where viruses come from and Predict the next pandemic. Chatbots are used to help people self-identify their best course of action, given their specific symptoms. ML can speed up drug development process significantly without sacrificing quality control. When researchers were trying to find small molecule inhibitors of the Ebola virus, they found that ML can speed up the scoring process – a quick screening that assigns each molecule a value based on how likely it is to help. This fast screening quickly identified three potential molecules for testing. We can use also natural language processing to read and interpret a large number of scientific articles and build biomedical knowledge graphs, which are structured networks that meaningfully connect different entities, such as drugs and proteins.

https://towardsdatascience.com/fight-covid-19-with-machine-learning-1d1106192d84

Robots, Drones & Autonomous Vehicles

Medtech companies are rolling out robots and drones to help fight it and provide services and care to those quarantined or practicing social distancing. This pandemic has fast-tracked the "testing" of robots and drones in public as officials seek out the most expedient and safe way to grapple with the outbreak and limit contamination and spread of the virus.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/03/18/how-robots-and-drones-are-helping-to-fight-coronavirus/#775a76fc2a12

Drones for Temperature Measurement

Drones for Delivery of Medicine

Drones for Spraying Disinfectants – Garauda Aerospace – Chennai Startup

Nurse Robots – Fortis Hospital – Invento Bangalore Startup – Mitra, Mitri Robots

Food delivery service Ele.me used robots to deliver meals to quarantined individuals held in a hotel who were suspected of having the virus. They also used Robots in their kitchen to cook the food.

Due to the contagiousness of COVID-19, it’s safer if human-to-human contact is minimized. Since robots are immune to infection, tech companies such as JD.com and others have stepped up to the challenge to get more robots out in force to deliver e.g. medical supplies within healthcare environments. Robots are also proving to be valuable when delivering essential items to people who shop and purchase online and are quarantined at home. Meituan Dianping, a delivery app, ramped up their “contactless delivery” options through autonomous vehicles and robots. Shenzhen-based startup Pudu Technology aimed to reduce cross-infection by implementing home delivery of drugs and meals via robot.

https://www.therobotreport.com/covid-19-pandemic-prompts-more-robot-usage-worldwide/

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Coronavirus-lockdown-sparks-expansion-of-drones-and-robot-deliveries

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/features/covid-19-in-the-times-of-touch-me-not-environment-drones-are-the-new-best-friends/articleshow/74924233.cms?from=mdr