Photo Reportage: Petr Kozlík

Photo Reportage

Photo by Jan Zátorský

Petr Kozlík

My name is Petr Kozlík, and I was born in 1982. After graduating from high school, I studied general medicine and then began making a living as a fashion and portrait photographer. My passion for photography began in college and has lasted almost 14 years, until today.

In my photography career, I’ve worked for many important fashion magazines (Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Dolce Vita, etc.). I have photographed countless celebrities, including from the showbiz world, and not only from the Czech Republic, but worldwide. Among my achievements is winning a Czech Press Photo Award this year for a portrait series.

Digitalised! #urgent The Pros and Cons of Switching to Online Post COVID-19

By Dominik Jezek

“Total mayhem.” That was my friend’s response when I asked her how everything was going in the first few weeks after a state of emergency was declared in the Czech Republic. Managing an increased workload from home while taking care of two elementary-school-age daughters made her feel like she was juggling fireballs.

Her children needed to attend video calls with their teachers, submit their homework, watch video lessons, or do other things online. Fortunately, she found an old laptop for them and didn’t have to share the one that she used for work. But you can still imagine what ensued after the WiFi became overloaded.

My friend’s problems might seem small in comparison with those in the lives of professional medical staff. Even so, they show one of the many side effects of the abrupt digitalisation that Czech schools have been going through since March. Thanks to conferencing software like Google Classroom, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, much of the schooling continued and made the traditionally paper-based industry faster, more agile, and more efficient overall.

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev

Take, for example, homework. Instead of copying down the exercise into a notebook, you open an application and tick the right answers. Moreover, you don’t need to stuff your school bag with lots of books, saving both your back and the planet. Children who are recovering from an illness can catch up at home through recorded video lessons or online courses. When they rejoin their schoolmates, they won’t be behind.

Alas, some students have been left behind. Not all families can afford laptops for their children. Poorer regions and families lack finances to jump on the e-train, which might widen the social gap. Education Committee vice president Kateřina Valachová estimated there are 100,000 children in need of electronic devices to connect to online classes and promised the Ministry of Education would try to find resources to bridge this gap.

The Ministry also faces the challenge of standardisation. The missing digital infrastructure and guidelines forced schools and teachers to take the initiative using various online solutions and systems. Introducing the necessary legislation, finding the right suppliers, and offering training courses for teachers is a long and bumpy road, but also a necessary one.

Photo by Coinview Czech liquid gold is another shining case study of how a traditional industry stood tall against the pandemic. Many of the smaller breweries live on a month-to-month basis and don’t have the financial clout of big international players. To make matters worse, smaller breweries often focus on craft beers, which have a shorter shelf life. When it comes to beer though, Czechs display remarkable resourcefulness.

Shortly after the strict governmental measures were announced, Kytin brewery owner Michal Pomahac started the #zachranpivo (Save Beer) initiative and set up a website where you can find a small brewery near you and support them by buying their beer online. More than 300 small breweries have joined in, and some have already set up their own e-shops and deliveries. When you can’t meet in a pub, buy beer online and set up a video conference with friends where you talk and drink. Cheers!

This typical Czech way of utilising digital tools brings us to the clear winners of the past few months – online companies. The active user base of popular video-conferencing tool Microsoft Teams soared from 20 to 75 million in recent months – 45 million hours of video calls a day. Google Meet saw a thirtyfold increase since January and currently reports over 100 million daily

meeting participants.

By Dominik Jezek

No free lunches

While all these numbers are impressive, they lag behind the king of video conferencing, Zoom. Not only did the US company reach the 300 million daily users threshold this April, but its impressive growth also proves that Zoom has been left unscathed by recent privacy and security concerns. Even the British parliament introduced Zoom-powered video links for their question-and-answer sessions in order to abide by social distancing rules.

Zoom’s main selling point is also its main risk – it’s free. And if you paid attention in your economics classes, you know there is no such thing as a free lunch. One of the first problems the company faced this year was the so-called zoombombing. As the system didn’t require you to submit a password, people were dropping into Zoom calls to which they weren’t invited and broadcasting offensive materials, like pornography.

Security companies and journalists also reported that Zoom leaked some user photos and email addresses, lied about its end-to-end encryption, routed some calls in North America through China, and much more. That’s why the firm faces an investor lawsuit, and its application was banned by many companies and institutions, including Google, SpaceX, and NASA. To put the cherry on top, Zoom was recently sued for sharing user data with Facebook and other third parties without users’ consent. Again, what can you expect from something that’s “free”?

Home office efficiency

Be it Zoom or other platforms, COVID-19 forced us to go online, which resulted in many companies markedly reducing red tape. The additional benefit is that some CEOs stopped seeing working from home as their employees’ attempt to watch Netflix during working hours without being reprimanded. Some managers discovered that a video call is much more effective than driving across the city and back only to attend the meeting in person. I, for one, liked saving an hour a day by not commuting to work. That’s almost a full extra day a month!

Having to pay rent for empty open offices made companies realise they don’t need to keep everyone at work at the same time. The temporary state of having fewer employees at the workplace may suggest how much the company can save by moving to smaller spaces and introducing a rotary home office system. This would also mean reinforcement of IT systems to ensure companies’ data is secure.

Photo by Ella Jardim

Photo by Markus Spiske

Tightened surveillance

When it comes to our personal lives, security and privacy became hot topics as many of us flocked online, especially when we heard how China further tightened its grasp over its population with a new virus tracking system. It assigns you a colour code – green, yellow or red – based on your health status, recent travels, and personal information. Governmental officials outside offices, malls, and subways stop anyone without a green code from entering.

Unfortunately, Chinese authorities haven’t clarified how the system works, leaving many of its citizens bewildered when receiving yellow or red codes. Be it deliberate or not, this gives the government a powerful tool to lock selected people down without the need for explanation.

Another problem arises when the entity collecting personal data keeps the tracking going even after the threat of the virus subsides. As recent history suggests, letting go of the treasure trove represented by the extended data collection could get a bit rocky. This particular issue looms even larger when you think about private companies that are already piling up swaths of our personal data.

Take Google and Apple, who cooperated on a contact-tracing app using APIs to track COVID-19 spread. Through Bluetooth IDs, their app alerts you if you have been exposed to anyone with the virus. Although the IT giants use much more sophisticated systems that promise to ensure the safety of our data, various experts expressed privacy concerns. Here to stay

Clearly, the digitalisation tsunami brought us a great many benefits, as well as concerns. For largely paperbased industries it was a much-needed push exposing critical bottlenecks and uncovering new opportunities. Many people used their creativity and worked overtime to keep others afloat.

The pandemic also shoved many of us deeper online. My great hope is that it also planted seeds in our heads that will grow into more advanced digital skills, an increasingly efficient world, and a sustainable future. The world won’t be the same, and many of the changes are here to stay. Those who are not on the digitalisation train should try their best to hop aboard because one day, it might be out of reach.