Time to upgrade the world

The times they are a changing… no… the times have changed! The sooner we realize this, the easier it will be for us to move on and plan a new world. We hope that the Covid-19 crisis is firmly put behind us, but future pandemic alerts could be the norm. That is why we have to upgrade the world accordingly and put technology to good use.

Do you really need to travel to that far off place when a series of video calls would do? The collaboration industry has finally come of age with the likes of Zoom, file sharing and even 3D tools. When things return back to normal we can decide to commute, do domestic and foreign travel only sparingly. Videoconferencing has to be the first choice and only if that doesn’t work should travel be decided upon.

How many Work From Home jobs don’t materialize because the company is too suspicious or the boss wants to have a team in a physical location to lord over? It’s time to kick the ego and take a proper WFH policy. If any job can be WFHed and the right candidate can be found then one should go ahead with it.

If 5G is not coming nationwide, then it should just be implemented in city centres and the rest of the country should be connected via laying even more optic fibre cables, having mobile Wi-Fi hotspots (via drones, weather balloons or even blimps) and maybe even expand and boost a 4G network in an area which may leapfrog to 6G someday.

Education is ripe for reform. School can be boosted with online tools but those in far off places can benefit from virtual classrooms. While school children studying at home on the laptop with working parents may be impractical; not so with college. An adult student who does multiple relevant online courses at home to develop the right skills may be preferred over one who goes to an expensive college to get an outdated degree.

Legislation is the only thing holding back drones and driverless cars. The government should push them with strict safety measures. It can be done in a phased manner so laws can be amended regularly to ensure safety. That’s the same with physical robots. The government should also accelerate the digitization process of its archaic departments and boost national data centres. Sport stars should consider participating in virtual tournaments.

Finally the future belongs to Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. We need many more courses, professionals and projects for the same. Welcome to yet another upgrade!