It wasn’t that long ago when we didn’t think twice before touching buttons on the lifts, door handles, and check-in monitors in public places. But now, many people would wish not to place their hands on these most-touched places. Awakened by Covid-19, we think about our health and safety more often than in the pre-pandemic era.
Surfaces that many people touch are the Petri dishes for germs. In a bid to limit contact with people and surfaces, numerous in-person activities are now being delivered online.
There has also been increased adoption of contactless technology through voice, gestures, hand interaction, eye tracking, facial recognition, and contactless fingerprints.
These technologies enable computer systems to take instructions through voice, user behaviour, facial patterns, or physical movement without physically touching a computer mouse, screen, or keypad.
The computer systems process and interpret these signals and respond as required. For example, many doors are fitted with sensors to perceive a person walking toward them and they open automatically.
Other technology systems require one to speak into them instead of typing in a password. They match the voice to the prerecorded voice, and if the match is accurate, the system allows access.
Around the world, touchless payment technologies such as mobile money services, contactless bank cards — cards that can be waved at or tapped on a reader to make a payment—and digital wallet payments on mobile phones have become widespread.
Opportunities for innovation
Even in small towns, touchless soap dispensers are being installed and for the right reasons. They dispense soap or water as soon as hands are placed under them. Therefore, one does not have to turn off the tap after washing hands — it goes off when you remove your hands.
These technology-based innovations have a precedent. Previous epidemics and pandemics accelerated the adoption of technologies such as e-commerce in China after the SARS epidemic in 2005. The 1918 pandemic energised research and innovation in microbiology, clinical infectious diseases, and public health — lessons that became foundational in tackling the current pandemic.
Covid-19, as overwhelming as it has been, has spawned opportunities for innovation and accelerated the adoption of technologies that seemed decades away. Some of these innovations will be the highlights of the next decade and will permanently transform careers, including eliminating some.
In his book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World , acclaimed journalist and author Fareed Zakaria sums it up aptly. He says that life after the pandemic “is going to be, in many aspects, a sped-up version of the world we knew.”
The pandemic continues to energise the adoption and implementation of many technologies that would have taken light years, if not decades, to become mainstream.
We should pay attention to these changes, adapt to them or, importantly, be part of the community of innovators that’s changing the contours of the world after Covid-19.
