APAC tech suppliers tout wares amid Covid-19 outbreak
In the midst of the ongoing Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, technology vendors all over the world have been touting their wares to help individuals, businesses and medical workers tide over this difficult period.
Save for a few, most suppliers in Asia-Pacific have been sensitive in positioning their offerings without being seen as capitalising on the situation. Here’s a look at some of them:
7-Network and Huawei
In Singapore, most major commercial building owners have implemented temperature checks for visitors and tenants and are collecting contact information to facilitate contact tracing in the event of a confirmed case.
But what about those who work in an office where such checks aren’t conducted? These could be small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that operate out of shophouses or those without resources or tools to conduct these checks on their own.
For these SMEs, Singapore tech company 7-Network, in conjunction with Huawei, is offering its codeless development platform, Jet Workflow, free-of-charge from now till 30 September 2020, to local SMEs, to help them automate and jump-start business continuity plans quickly.
The platform provides ready-to-use forms for visitor logging and contact tracing, as well as systems for employee temperature monitoring and illness reporting. SMEs can also easily manage remote employees served with Stay Home Notices or Quarantine Orders.
Jet Workflow is one of the digital solutions packages put together by SG Tech, the local technology trade association, and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), to help tide companies tide over operations during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Alibaba
Chinese cloud giant Alibaba Cloud is making its DingTalk enterprise collaboration tool available to medical workers around the world in the form of the International Medical Expert Communication Platform.
This will enable medical workers to directly contact doctors from medical institutions such as the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University and others in China that have been on the frontline of the Covid-19 battle.
Through video conferencing and real-time translation into 11 languages including Arabic, Chinese, English, French and Japanese, the platform also serves a virtual community for Chinese doctors to share their experiences and answer questions from global peers.
In addition, Alibaba’s Damo research academy is making its genome sequencing algorithm available to medical institutions that are conducting coronavirus analytics, including viral genetic data screening, evolutionary analysis, protein structure analysis and diagnostic reporting.
The algorithm can complete the diagnosis of new coronavirus within 14 hours, which is five times faster than other available sequencing solutions in China.
StarHub
Singapore telco StarHub will progressively offer six months of unlimited local talk time for free to all healthcare professionals under its Corporate Individual Scheme #HelloChange two-year mobile plans by 1 April 2020.
They will also be able to enjoy additional S$200 off selected phone models when they renew or sign up for two-year plans, which offer 15GB to over 100GB, free weekend data, and free caller ID. In addition, StarHub Mobile customers can get selected Samsung tablets at S$0 upfront with a low fixed monthly instalment.
Acronis
Singapore-founded Acronis is making its Cyber Files Cloud, an enterprise-grade file sync and share solution, free to all service providers through 31 July 2020, so they can help businesses quickly transition to working remotely while keeping vital data secure. It is also offering training videos and documentation to help service providers train their clients and their end users and get them onboarded.
“As a cyber protection company, we believe strongly in the protection of all data, applications and systems at all times. We understand the challenges of our service provider partners – providing secure collaboration environment for their customers – and we are able to support them in this time by allowing them to enable remote work for their customers at no additional cost during the outbreak,” said Gaidar Magdanurov, chief cyber officer and chief operating officer at Acronis.