With everybody settling into extended weeks of quarantine , thoughts about a world post Covid-19 continue to evolve , with thoughts ranging from new learning experiences , a re-structured payment hierarchy that rewards jobs we realized we need most to people even juggling thoughts about the end of capitalism as we know it today.
I tried to gather my thoughts about this unprecedented time, after all it’s a time unlike any we have lived before nor will we god willing ever live this again.
To start with there is no other that the topic dearest to my heart Tech.
- Technology: Time and again technology has come to our rescue enabling millions of people around the globe to continue learning, communicating and working. Jobs, meetings and tasks in industries that were for long deemed undoable down the wire turned out to work just fine. Looking at the cost that could have been avoided over the last 10 years at least if the same means which have been available for that period of time had been leveraged in the same manner and the impact this would have had on profitability, environment and well-being of people.
So, what’s next in that space, more of predictions because everybody does that don’t, they:
- E-learning will definitely come out as a big winner, and I mean it here in the context of e-learning only and first not just for post graduate studies but all the way down to schools, e-learning only schools are a must ,I can almost see this happen in the next few months .
- Remote first work ethic, organizations specially in industries outside the tech space will embark on journeys to explore how tech can help them improve their bottom line, after all it worked during a time of crisis, so why not during normal times. Additionally, I do not feel we have realized the full potential of technology in that space beyond the ability to communicate, the need to extend to the ability to execute will drive a lot of change in that space.
- E-commerce, not that it needed any further boost than it did, but brick and mortar trading I think has taken the final knockout blow with Covid-19. Entire investment plans will be re-visited.
- Health Care tech, for the lack of a better word, for years Fintech has been the hot topic, no more, I think. VC’s, investors and corporates will embark on a journey of cash splashing on everything health care related that enables faster access to health care, better and speedier testing, old school vaccine development will get an overhaul, at the same time.
- Capitalism ..think again. A lot of the thoughts I am reading around the demise of capitalism for me do not even qualify for wishful thinking. I am convinced that if it wasn’t for the overtake of capitalism in the past 40 years or so, none of what we have today could have been possible. All the tools at hand that we are using to fight Covid-19, or enable our lives to continue during this time would not have been possible if it wasn’t for capitalism.
Yet the argument about how the system has suppressed the most needing, crippled people and nations with debt is strong and valid. However not strong enough to compel a full system breakdown. I think changes in that space can be summarized in the following:
- Regulation: Governments will become a bit more heavy handed in regulation of industries they have continuously overlooked, specifically in light of Covod-19 and the realization that free market does not always step up to expectations at times of crisis, healthcare, insurance, consumables are targets
- Earnings: Triggered mainly by the realization that people who we most need to live deserve a lot more pay than people who entertain us, although astonishing that it took a global pandemic to reach that realization. Yet I fear the euphoria of this will be short lived if not capitalized on quickly
- Immigration: The shortage of skills or rather the imbalance of it will trigger a new wave of immigration, although I believe it will be a much focused and organized one.
- Society …or people in general, their emotions, habits and thoughts about their lifestyle and its sustainability will jump high into people’s minds. I do not think within my generation at least that a threat to life its continuity and our abilities to sustain it have ever been tested, a few thoughts there would be:
- Savings: As soon as the dust settles, the need for new safe nets would emerge, safe nets that do not involve stocks or bond, but more innovative accessible to the masses investment forms to enable people to sustain life at times like this.
- Healthcare: It would no longer be a need, the big winners out of this will be insurance companies who will be able to develop new more economical models that enables a wide spectrum of people to access healthcare in a more affordable manner
- Education: Newer generations on the doorsteps of undergraduate studies would rethink their prospects, all lists that currently exist of the jobs needed for the future would be revisited.
Ironically the society and human aspects of the post Covid-19 world will be the most challenging, for the simple reason that we tend to forget. Getting the masses to adhere to new principles and way of life has been a challenge at the time of the crisis itself through all the resistance seen worldwide to the simple directive of staying at home, so embarking on a full lifestyle change post the Covid-19 era will be even more challenging.
