The world-ravaging pandemic known as COVID19 has taken and still taking its toll on the various sectors of the world. No one would have thought the entire world can be put on lockdown due to an organism that is barely up to 300 nm in size. One thing that has ensured the continued survival and evolution of man through time, however, is his ability to adapt to situations.
While many things were shut down in order to prevent the virus from further extending its tentacles, many things were invented and are still being invented. While the effects of the pandemic can be felt by everyone, people feel it differently; with some being negatively impacted and others positively impacted. Someone mentioned besides me about a woman who confessed in public transport that she has never been more economically buoyant in her life than during the lockdown. Her business simply moved quite well during the lockdown period, it seemed.
Apart from the woman in the public bus, the pandemic and the lockdown that followed it created several opportunities for innovators to capitalize on. While the scientific world was busy looking for solutions to the pandemic, many investors and entrepreneurs were busy taking advantage of the situation. Below is a compilation of some of the various opportunities that the COVID19 pandemic has created and those that seized the opportunity to make varying forms of gains.
Off-class Learning
The onset of the lock-down due to the covid19 pandemic initially had stakeholders in the education sector feeling it will all end in no time. Even though there were pointers to off-school learning before the pandemic, the protracted lock-down made many institutions of learning to evolve various means of teaching their students without having to gather them all in one place.
The transition was quite easy for most institutions in the developed countries unlike their counterparts in the developing ones. Nevertheless, stakeholders in institutions of the developing countries improvised where necessary and as such, platforms like zoom and Google classroom came into more light during this period.
New applications targetting off-class learning also emerged to compete with already known apps while some evolved to be niche-specific. Prominence among them are the online learning platforms that focus on helping students with their homework and assignments. A good example is the uLesson app by the famous Nigerian entrepreneur, Sim Shigaya
Work from Home
With businesses locked down and revenue tap fast slowing down, many employers of labour had little or no option but to take the necessary actions in order to stay afloat. While some had to find a way for their employees to get various tasks done from their comfort zones, many resorted to laying off staff to tighten their revenue taps, yet, many combined the two strategies.
Several instant messaging/social media applications that make it easy to delegate and collaborate became more popular as a result. Applications like slack, Flock, Discord, Github and many more all came in handy.
Emergence of Small Businesses
With the loss of jobs and continued scarcity of paid employment due to the pandemic, the attention of many shifted into creating small businesses in order to eke out a living. People that have never ventured into a business had to try and several applications came into prominence targeting the management of small and medium scale businesses. On this list include Gusto, Shopventory, and several other apps.
Telemedicine and E-medicine
At the height of the pandemic and the ensued lock-down, hospitals became a hub filled with activities. Health workers were overwhelmed with work and every ill-health became suspicious. Many sicknesses that are of no emergency were relegated to the low end of the pyramid and many illnesses that otherwise would have taken people to the hospital were managed at home.
Telemedicine and E-medicine became more prominent and many apps emerged or become more popular trying to take the opportunity created by the situation. Applications on this list include MDlive, Lemonaid, Doctor on Demand, and so on.
Decentralized Finance
No doubt that the pandemic took its best toll on finance at individual, corporate and even government levels. Banks were limited in their activities and many financial settlements encountered major doldrum. Many people went broke even though they were rich on paper. Many banks closed completely while the few ones limited the time and the number of customers they can attend to.
Even at that, customers were limited to a certain threshold of financial transactions when it comes to dealing with cash. In all these, decentralized financial systems started becoming popular. Many people dabbled into cryptocurrencies and Defi systems such as yield farming, crypto-lending, staking, etc.
In Nigeria, it was during this period that a platform like Binance became more popular as people got to know about Defis and crypto trading. Nigeria became the third largest trader of Bitcoin during this period as well and Binance was at the center of it all.
Of course, the opportunities created by the pandemic are too numerous to treat everything at a go. The list can go on and on.
Thank you for reading my little piece.
It is sometimes hard to see the good when all the bad is dominating the conversation. I agree with what you have written. I think a lot of people are re-examining the way they live and are starting to see that maybe things don't have to be the way they are presently. I know for my part I don't yearn to get back to normal. I am hoping that there is some meaningful/positive change to the way we live that can come out of all the misery that has been brought upon us during this pandemic.
Whatever happens, going back to normal is no longer on the table for the entire world. Things have evolve and we just gotta live with it and continue evolving.
The "normal" changes every generation. People don't like that change occurred while they were noticing.
I agree. People do not like disruptive changes, but ill easily imbibe the subtle ones.
I definitely want to see lockdowns end. But at the same time, I don't want things back as they were. We should use this as an opportunity to realize that people can work and learn from home. Perhaps it could even allow people to"attend" ivy league colleges who might not be able to due to location, finances, etc.
Totally agree the pandemic needs to end but the lessons learned from it need to be retained and expanded upon. People need to realize they have more power to control their situations then they are led to believe. They may need to make sacrifices in certain areas but in my opinion there are better and happier ways to live than what we have been doing.
True! We need to make sure that there are plenty of options too. Hive is a huge help in this area :) !
!PIZZA
I do not think the virus will go away entirely, to be honest. We just need to learn to live with it just like HIV. We should rather focus on evolving new methods of doing things rather than trying to go back to 'normal'.
We didn't go into lockdown because of Ebola, and it's infinitely worse. Many people can't take it long term emotionally, so many people have killed themselves over this :( Gas masks maybe?
!PIZZA
Maybe because Ebola is not as infectious as COVID. It's read a sad one watching the world meltdown.
The pandemic has caused a lot of things in the world,but it also affect some people positively too.
In Nigeria , always over heard some people saying " I wish the lock-down will continue " they said this just because of the benefits they are getting during those time.
During this period some people use the opportunity to look for what to do for a living, they are able to see things they never thought they would see. People insights is open to different things.
But it's a pity that some people becomes the victim of the pandemic, I'm not talking about those who loose their life, but those who use the pandemic as an execuse for not achieving their goals.
adapting to situation of things in our vicinity will make us to see the negative side of everything happens.
You got a nice post here, I came across your post via @dreemport , and I'm glad I saw this
I agree perfectly. It gave many opportunity to try new things and what I appreciated about it is that it afforded many families the opportunity to be together. Those working parents who hardly create time to bond with their families, all were at home, locked down. Haha
Inasmuch as people have taken an advantage of this to better their income and life through work from home, we still want this to end so people can go back to their normal lives and not live in fear that they would be contracted with this disease.
I have also in no doubt benefits from this financial breakthrough too and it's all thanks to this period. But we want it to end.
Your article was worth reading and it's because I was directed here by @dreemport
I guess many people just want the negatives removed and the positives reinforced. Hopefully, that would be soon.
You've clearly enumerated the advantages of the COVID-19 virus albeit how insane it sounds that something evil can bring about so much good but then it's in the ability of humans to adapt in situations like this and turn it around for their own good. Yeah indeed! The COVID-19 pandemic opened the eyes of the world to the list of endless possibilities and new ways of doing things.
@dreemport brought me to your post.
Thanks for such an insightful addition. While many are biting their fingers at their losses, many others are counting their gains. Different strokes for different folks.
While many of the conspiracy theorist would claim that all this growth was orchestrated by big pharmas and big techs there are various good things that have come to limelight because of the pandemic.
One of the things I would like to highlight is that even people services like human resource management have been able to do better from home. They have been actually able to focus on people and their problems and offer various forms or help and resources to them.
Coming to the basics, the family is able to spend time together, parents are actively taking part in the activities of their children instead of sending from one class/practice/sport to another.
I fear this new normal maybe the way thing may stay for a while.
Directed to this post through @dreemport
The new normal seems to be beneficial in many ways. DO we really want to go back to the old normal? I do not think many would want to. WE have crossed the rubicon and now, we must continue with the journey.
Its going to be hard for many to accept this as the normal.. many still wait for it. I have come to terms with this a year ago. It's better to accept change and move on.
The transition was quite easy for most institutions in the developed countries unlike their counterparts in the developing ones. Nevertheless, stakeholders in institutions of the developing countries improvised where necessary and as such, platforms like zoom and Google classroom came into more light during this period.This is not entirely true. For many students (in developed countries or not) moving online was just a nightmare. I have witnessed a lot of psychological distress, students falling into pieces in front of me (via Zoom), etc. While many can adapt easily, a significant fraction of the students cannot. Online learning is indeed not a solution for anyone.
Similarly, for several lecturers moving online or lecturing in a hybrid way was a nightmare. I here also witnessed some cases of psychological distress, unfortunately.
Therefore, saying it was easy is maybe simplifying things too much...
Well, my initial posture was based on infrastructures. The know-how and the psychological parts would be another discussion on their own. Some institutions here do not have any provision for the internet, for example. Many students cannot afford to get appropriate gadgets for their online classes, among many other challenges.
Aaah OK I see. I didn't fully get it.
In terms of infrastructure, I think we should distinguish universities and countries who had initiated their online transition before the COVID from the other ones. You can take Estonia for instance, where things were quite smooth.
In addition, as you said, the financial question leads to the possibility to quickly invest where needed, and we have here a plus for the developed countries. Things could however be quite slow, even in developed countries, as deploying for instance a better WIFI coverage does not take 5 minutes. In my university, they worked out things quite heavily during the last summer break, to improve the network for this year. This is however quite late relative to the pandemic. This being said, better late than never!
At the student level, I am attempted to say that the financial issue is the same everywhere in the world, as students belong (in most case) to the population with the least amount of resources: many students are indeed struggling to get food for instance. I can fairly imagine this holds in all countries.
Because of this pandemic I was able to learn crypto and had found my passion- writing thru Hive Blockchain.
I am really happy for you. There are several testimonies like this and it warms my heart to see that everything is not as gloomy as the media make them seem
I am a believer of "Opportunity lies in the middle of difficulties".
Or 'in every difficulty lies opportunities'
Nice article. I started learning Blender, Procreate, Unreal Engine, Godot Game Engine all during the pandemic. It has indeed been a blessing for many!
That's really awesome but how were you able to manage to stuff everything into your head all at once? lol. Thanks for the lovely comment
Thanks for the reply! I did not start all at once, one thing lead to another :)
I started with Godot engine, then Blender, then Unreal Engine and most recently Procreate. I try to integrate more than 1 software in my work when possible.
From my own perspective it is indeed a great opportunity for health workes all over the world.
Maybe. They were also the most exposed being at the frontline of everything. They deserve everything good that comes their way, tbh
Good can come from almost any tragedy, if we are able to step back and try to see the situation without emotion. This is not always possible of course. If it hits too close and hurts too much, it is impossible at least right away.
I agree. It is almost two years now. We need to chart a way forward rather than trying to return back to normal
Definitely - why not keep the good, and drop the bad parts! It's been proven that work can be more flexible.
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