The Remarkable Power of Crisis: Covid-19 as a Catalyst for Innovation

Crises often inspire innovation, and COVID-19 is no exception. A new survey conducted by the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center has found that the vast majority of tech leaders believe the coronavirus pandemic will ‘accelerate innovation significantly’ in several key areas:

· Data and artificial intelligence

· Medical and bioengineering

· Trust and supply chains

· The future of work

Many of these innovations will be tied to the pandemic itself as pharma companies and regulators work to fast track development of vaccines and treatments, and in turn use data and AI to identify patients and monitor safety. Here are a few examples of current innovation in action:

More than 90 COVID-19 vaccine development projects have been launched since the pandemic began, and eight have already moved to human trials – a step that would have taken years under normal circumstances. On May 18, Moderna, the Massachusetts biotechnology company developing one of the vaccines, announced promising early results from its first human safety tests, and is already planning phase 2 and phase 3 studies.

This rapid innovation isn’t just an example of good science. It has been made possible by unprecedented collaborations between public and private stakeholders across the global healthcare community. Governments are funding many of these projects, regulators are fast-tracking submission reviews, and pharma companies are compressing development timelines. Some have even taken the calculated risk of retrofitting production sites and beginning production of vaccines prior to regulatory approval.

This is real-time proof that the most profound innovation occurs in challenging times, and when disparate stakeholders are willing to set aside barriers and work collaboratively toward common goals.

Data and AI have been imperative catalysts to the medically-based innovations arising in response to COVID 19. Pharma and tech companies have been working together to develop groundbreaking tools to accelerate drug development, launch tracing programs, and more effectively diagnose and treat patients.

These include one innovative project underway at University of Chicago in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, in which a team of AI experts are building an automated tool to assess chest X-rays, CT scans and other medical images related to COVID-19 symptoms – with no human intervention. The tool uses a machine learning algorithm that has been taught to identify signs of COVID-19 in the scans, which can then be used to determine the best treatment choices for individual patients.

“We’re taking our AI development knowledge that we’ve learned from analyzing other lung diseases and using it here,” team leader Maryellen Giger told UChicago news. “In doing so, we will transfer learning and get away with a lot fewer cases as we combine medical imaging intelligence with machine intelligence.”

Her team anticipates that the technology will also be able to identify COVID-19 cases that were previously missed.

Supply Chain Supports

With stores locked up, and stay-at-home orders in place, the ability to shop has been seriously curtailed. Some of the most innovative retailers have tackled this challenge head on, in part by adopting technologies that allow them to respond more quickly and with greater agility to rapidly shifting market demands.

Camelot IT Labs is innovating to help. In the first weeks of the pandemic, the tech company built the COVID-19 Impact Analyzer for Supply Chain Management, a free machine learning tool that advises companies on how the pandemic will affect their supply chain. Users upload their sales or shipment data, then the tool conducts a scenario forecast providing best, worst, and most-likely outcomes using real-time COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins University. The forecast helps companies see how changes in highly affected product categories – like toilet paper – will affect their plans and adapt accordingly.

We’ve already seen the impact of the pandemic on the future of work in the rapid shift to remote-work models. Working from home has been a rough transition for some, but many experts predict that even after the virus is contained, these models will likely stick around. One survey found 43% of full-time American employees plan to work remotely more often after the economy has reopened, and nearly 20% said their employers are considering how to make that are reality.

Recognizing these significant shifts, Korean startup CTL has developed their first product — a fitness tool designed to disrupt the sedentary lifestyle experienced by home-based workers. The product is an active footrest that sits under a desk, which through regular movements of your feet improves blood circulation and relieves tension from the joints, leading to reportedly improved cognitive performance.

Another example of innovation in the face of workplace shifts comes from wellness company Living Ashram, which is launching a wellbeing app for employees. The goal of the app, which features specially-designed practices including mindful breathing, forgiveness and gratitude exercises, is for employees to regain a feeling of purpose, to counter feelings of disconnection and isolation and to help them connect with other employees.