Leaderspeak | Digitalization During COVID-19
Pandemic shifts focus on digital transformation
Coronavirus has taught us a lot of new things. In addition to teaching us the significance of community hygiene, masks and social distancing, the virus has changed the way we go about our daily lives, especially professional lives. Online meetings, seminars, conferences, workshops and even political rallies have become a routine affair. And, even the in-house official meetings are being conducted online to maintain social distancing. The question is: how this digital transformation in our lives is going to impact the cities we live in
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overnment of India has been promoting e-governance, digital learning, use of online financial transactions, etc. to make administration and governance easily accessible, transparent and accountable. The pandemic has also changed the work culture and many corporate houses encouraged their employees to work from home. Work from Home culture has caught up in cities fast during the pandemic. Many small businesses who could manage their operations online, shut their offices in many locations to cut down their expenditure. Many corporate offices have made their working spaces safe by using some short-time design fixes and reducing the number of workers at a given time. Many institutions and corporate houses had the experience of using digital tools earlier. They rebound faster after the pandemic struck because they already had capabilities, resources, tools, and systems to swiftly move to remote working, learning, collaborating. The pandemic and lockdown measures have resulted in cancellation of many international events. Some of them have gone virtual. AIILSG has also started a series of webinars on urban issues. The institute has also gone digital in imparting trainings to
26 September 2020 | www.urbanupdate.in
students and other stakeholders. We will continue to host such webinars and workshops for benefitting urban local bodies, city leaders and other stakeholders. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is also working to introduce new projects and programs virtually. The most recent one was Climate Smart Cities Programme. The world has not come to a standstill. Thanks to technological innovations which have helped us stay hopeful and active in finding a way through this crisis. The flip side of the story is that if this situation sustains, it is going to affect the real estate business in large cities. Another question is that if virtual meetings and working can completely replace our physical offices. There has been some discussion on this but I don’t believe so because human beings yearn for socializing. I am quite sure that our offices and streets will be abuzz like before as soon as the world finds a vaccine. This has happened in the past during the Spanish flu in the early 20th century. This is for sure that people will be more cautious about sanitization going forward.
Technology and COVID-19
The countries which have been successful in containing the spread of the contagion used digital tools in pandemic management and response effectively. Cities used technology in
planning, surveillance, testing, contact tracing, quarantine, and health care. How did India use digital technology in pandemic management? Most of the telecom operators used their caller tunes to spread awareness on precautions, social distancing, etc. The Government of India also launched Aarogya Setu app for informing people if they have come in contact with infected persons. People can also know how many people in their vicinity are COVID positive or unwell. Many states in India like Karnataka and Kerala used technology effectively for contact tracing. The WHO has also appreciated the efforts of Karnataka.
