We live in a time when technology has taken over the world. No matter what the problem, there is always a startup or a tech giant coming up with a solution. There is no doubt that technology has elevated the quality of life across the globe and has increased life expectancy all over the world. However, we are currently living in an extraordinary time when the entire world and stock markets are being brought to its knees due to a virus of the physical kind. The virus which originated in the Wuhan province in China, has quickly spread like wildfire across the globe due to its exponential growth and transmission rates. World governments are enforcing quarantine measures in order to combat the spread of the virus. As quarantine measures are taking effect, corporations and businesses have come up with innovative ideas to ensure their work stays on track and have implemented work from home options.
The unforeseen threat of the Novel Coronavirus crippled the stock markets around the world so much so that it is being compared to the great economic depression that shook the world in the 1930’s. However technology companies are coming together to offer whatever assistance they can to help combat the Coronavirus.
Microsoft:
Microsoft has always prided itself on being one of the largest technology companies in the world for more than two decades. Microsoft was always on the forefront of innovation and Bill Gates visionary leadership was a vital contributor for its growth. In these testing times Microsoft’s communication application Team has seen a huge surge in its usage. The chat and conferencing app gained more than 12 million daily users in one week as more people worked from home during the coronavirus outbreak. Microsoft understood that healthcare providers and hospitals are under extreme stress and therefore rolled out several features designed to help with telemedicine and employees working from home, such as a bookings application for Teams to help hospitals manage virtual appointments.
Facebook:
Facebook is a social networking platform which boasts of having a whopping 2.36 billion active users on its platform. This makes it a very powerful tool to communicate and spread information quickly. However, this also means a lot of misinformation and myths can be spread as well. Facebook usually has a team of moderators verifying information going online on its platform and checking to see if the information meets their community guidelines. In these testing times, misinformation is spreading at an alarming rate and therefore Facebook is considering the usage of Artificial Intelligence to do the job of a moderator in order to combat wrong information being spread about the Coronavirus.
Twitter:
Microblogging platform Twitter is one of the quickest ways to search for information online from all over the world. A verified Twitter user tagged Jack Dorsey and asked him why popular and esteemed epidemiologists, contagion experts and virologists do not have a verified account which is indicated by a blue tick on their profiles. Paul Graham, the cofounder of Y Combinator retweeted the original post and asked Jack why Twitter is not verifying the accounts of contagion experts as their expertise is the need of the hour. Jack Dorsey was quick to acknowledge Paul Graham’s tweet and has called for users to help Twitter in identifying public health experts.
Alibaba:
Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma has pledged an extraordinary amount of resources to help the world out in this crisis. Jack Ma donated face masks, safety suits and virus testing kits to Japan, Iran and Italy. Italy and Iran in particular have seen the highest cases of Coronavirus outside of China. In the latest update, Jack Ma pledged more support to some of the poorest countries in Asia.
In this time of crisis, it is heartwarming to see businesses putting profits aside for the moment and instead focus their efforts on helping humanity as a whole. As the whole Coronavirus pandemic sees its course, there will no doubt be countless stories of humanity winning all over the world.
