hey everyone welcome back to today in tech I'm Juliet Beauchamp I am here with
Ken Mingis the executive editor of computerworld today we're going to be
talking about how tech companies are pitching in to help the Covid 19 fight so stick
around alright Ken thank you so much for calling in we've missed you we are so so
happy that you are back back yeah it's great to see you Juliet thanks I hope
you're staying safe greetings from an undisclosed location in North Carolina
thank you and I hope that you are staying safe as well so we heard a lot
and I actually did a video about this with Matt Finnegan who of course you are
very well acquainted with and we talked about how you know some collaboration
tools have been aiding enterprises and giving them you know free licenses or
cheaper licenses to help in this sort of transition to work from home but that's
really not the only way that tech companies are actually helping the this
new transition that we're all experiencing what can you tell us about
how some tech companies are actually really helping you know hospitals
frontline workers yeah it's really interesting this is something that we've
been tracking in computer world for a couple of weeks now as the pandemic got
worse more and more companies we're trying to figure out how they could help
out I mean they wanted to help out especially with healthcare workers on
the front lines and with some of these sort of instant hospitals that were
springing up so we've been sort of tracking what companies are doing it's
interesting it kind of breaks down and like infrastructure things like
companies that have been helping set up Internet communications and networking
for some of these like one of the hospital ships in LA things like
analytics because there's a lot of data floating around out there about what's
going on with the pandemic where it's popping up who may or may not be
infected and trying to track you know where those people are going and then of
course there's always been the problem the ongoing problem of getting the
personal protective equipment to people on the frontlines and so there's been
some efforts around there to try to be either connect people with the with the
equipment that they need or even use 3d printing and modeling try that actually
is it build some of them some of the pieces
of hardware that the frontline workers need it's really interesting to see
every day we get releases and statements and announcements from companies a lot
of them are as you say offering like their software for free which does tell
obviously if you're trying to get different more workers up and running
and even with health care workers but it especially for those on the front lines
I think this is where technology has really been able to sort of help out and
and to move pretty quickly to try to get supplies where needed yeah I think I
heard maybe a few weeks maybe by this time a month ago who knows the days kind
of all seem to blend together but I heard about you know potential whispers
of 3d printing parts for ventilators which are obviously so desperately
needed and it's a really interesting way to see I mean I know 3d printing has
become really really prominent in healthcare but it's a really encouraging
way to see that you know there's a lot of great alternatives to you know
instead of just these big manufacturing companies saying okay instead of making
you know XYZ product cars and tables chairs whatever we're gonna shift to
making ventilators there's a real way for tech companies to help out is it
both of us you know they're 3d printing but they're also providing you know
examples or I mean stencils isn't the right word but something like that right
it'll almost like the blueprints yeah well you know when you think about it um
big companies like the car manufacturers and and you know that have all kinds of
resources it takes a while for them to tool up and to build something at scale
and so there are companies that are it's almost like a grassroots effort at least
from what we've been able to see um there was a company this week it's
called bi em object it may be them object I apologize if I'm mispronouncing
the company's name they are a building information modeling firm and what
they've done is basically opened up their platform so that users can upload
plans for equipment like you were saying you know something like 3d printing
files for medical equipment this could be anything from masks to ventilator
parts you know ventilators is obviously the shorter do
is a big problem and so which is sort of interesting that they threw open the
platform and said you know this is a place for you to upload your plans and
then maybe others can take those plans and do the actual building process it's
it's not going to be to scale like something like a major manufacturer
could do but again every ventilator is potentially another life that might be
safe and so this sort of grassroots effort from tech firms I think is is
really cool you know and it and I do believe it will help at least at the
margins and we'll take everything we can get at this point yeah absolutely I
would imagine that also there's going to be so so much data that you know
scientists researchers anyone you know data scientists in the healthcare
industry are going to have to comb through continuously I mean I'm sure
they've been combing through that data now to look at you know helpful patterns
what treatments worked what types of people are being hospitalized or what
types of people are being affected those demographics and are there any sort of
data analytics tools that are also being offered to these you know frontline
workers yeah yeah and in fact Domo has done a really good
job they've got their coded 19 global tracker that's been out for two or three
several weeks now anyway what they did recently was they were able to add data
down to the county level at least in the United States and I actually have this
set as my home screen when I fire up my if I'm far at home on my computer
because basically it gives me in a very easy to understand visual format an idea
of where the hot spots are where things may be not knowing where things are
still getting worse and you can dig down and and see again at the county level so
I'm here in North Carolina and I can look and see what's going on in Wake
County I can compare that to what's going on on the west coast or at the New
York and it's done in a way that you know anybody including me I'm not a data
angle analyst by any stretch of the imagination but the way Domo puts the
information together with graphs and and and the real simple UI makes it really
easy and I think that's that's useful not only for people on the front line
but all of us because we all want kind of thing
okay where is this thing now where is it going there's only so much you can
absorb on TV but if you're looking at it you can kind of manipulate the data on
your own computer you can kind of draw your own conclusions as to you know
where it's where it's getting worse and there may be four lucky things are
getting better so I'm a big fan of the the Domo code with 19 global tracker
yeah that's really interesting and that your make such a great point it's really
helpful for not only you know our frontline workers who are hoping to
predict when their hospitals are going to be you know just completely swamped
with Cova 19 tape cases but you're totally right it's really helpful for
you know the average person who's worried about their health worried about
the health of their families and wants to see how their area is doing whether
it's you know plateau and hopefully getting worse just to be able to you
know mentally and physically prepare that it can be a really useful
information I know it's useful for me yeah well you
know it's also interesting and this this is something that just just popped into
my email this morning and I have not had a chance to look at it in depth but MIT
researchers are you know well me back up one of the things that's important is
trying to figure out through testing who may be infected who may be asymptomatic
and most importantly who have they been near you know so you can trace and track
back and try to stop outbreaks before they get bad and I just saw something
come over an email from MIT saying that researchers there have developed a
system that basically allows your smartphone to help track where you've
been but can also preserve privacy because obviously that's a big issue
right now we need you know there's the competing things here between health
care and privacy people want to know okay is everybody around me safe but you
also want that sort of an anonymized because you don't really want
governments completely tracking where everybody's going that said you need to
be able to track what people have been if you're gonna try to stop this this
pandemic so I want to look at this a little further but it you know it
certainly seems like MIT has something here that might be really useful going
forward especially because the world is increasingly mobile virtually everybody
has a mobile device and if you could use that either through an app or
or however this would work to track where people have been you can identify
hotspots and then maybe snuff them out before they get back you know and so I'm
really interested to see I'm gonna look at this little further and I may include
this in the next update for my story that's really interesting if there's I
think that would be a really great thing to you know to continue discuss cuz
that's a really great point and to that end it seems like a lot of tech
companies Tech researchers you know MIT obviously is not just the university
itself but it has a lot of organizations within it that really help with you know
data analytics research really everything under the Sun so it's
interesting to see how quickly tech companies have been able to pivot in
many cases to make this sort of and to make fighting the coronavirus they're
really number one priority whether it's through giving these helpful tools to
enterprises you know the VPNs the collaboration tools of the world or
whether it's providing a cohesive dataset that's really interesting but
there's also the way that tech amis have been really digging into their supply
chains to gather equipment which is also I mean really helpful there's only so
much that you know you and I can do together masks for our frontline workers
but when you have a massive massive tech company like Apple I know that you
mentioned when they're digging into their supply chain to find masks that
can make a real impact yeah it's interesting that's something that popped
up this week Apple CEO Tim Cook was tweeting about it actually tweeted out
about a 2 or 3 minute video where he was talking about it you know he is mister
supply chain when it comes to Apple at least that that's been his reputation
and Apple has been been doing a lot of different things to try to help out with
the pandemic and this is something that he said that they had identified I think
20 million masks that could be used on the frontlines and they thought that
hang on one second I've got a call coming that they had identified 20
million masks and they were hoping to be able to like find and produce through
their supply chain a million masks a week certainly starting in the US and
then maybe moving to other countries outside the US I think that the first
delivery went to Kaiser hospital facilities in Santa
and again you know something we just had Johnny Evans he writes about Apple for
us at computer world noted that apples even made tweaks to its Maps app so that
people using Apple maps have ready access to like locations for health care
facilities you know places that they might need more than you know the local
McDonald's I mean you can obviously still get information on local
McDonald's but you know if you're worried about health care and trying to
figure out you know where the nearest emergency room is or something like that
just something as simple as tweaking that Mac's app can make a difference you
know so lots of companies doing lots of things in the variety of directions it's
really interesting and and I think as I mentioned you know we've been carving
this for a couple of weeks on computer world and we continually update that
story as different initiatives will allow so I would I would you know urge
people if you want to know what tech is do and definitely come to computer world
and take a look at that story oh yeah absolutely will definitely be linking
that story in the description of this video on youtube so 100% if you want to
see a more full and comprehensive list other than the examples that Ken and I
have just mentioned be sure to check that out it's it is encouraging to see
how a lot of tech companies are really stepping up and in really helping us I
mean I know that there were original whispers of you know you can use this
app to track your symptoms to see if you're at risk or whether it's worth it
for you to call your doctor or going to test and there's going to be I have to
imagine a lot of interesting innovations just in you know the coming weeks as we
more of this as the corona virus becomes more widespread and hopefully hopefully
plateaus yeah it's interesting just just a you know before we before I go I just
one of the things that that has come out is there's been a lot of effort to
provide people with information on where the temporary testing facilities are you
know and it's sort of a crowd-sourced effort so there are companies that are
provided platform so as these you know drive through testing facilities pop up
in New York or Florida or wherever and people you know may be having symptoms
or whatever and they want to get tested that's not information that's readily
available so by using these apps and crowdsourcing the information companies
are basically able to into people's hands information about
where they might go to get tested so again it's just it's sort of this
grassroots effort that everybody is trying to figure out okay this is what
we do as a company how can we take that and help out somehow whether it's
frontline workers information for people producing devices you know it's just a
variety of things and it it's actually really reassuring to see it's good you
know in this in this very divisive world we live in and it's good to see
companies from all across the world pitch in and help yeah absolutely well
thank you so much Ken for calling and we really appreciate it and like I
mentioned we'll be sure to a length of that frequently updated story down below
so everyone can stay up to date on the latest things that companies have been
doing thanks Juliet I appreciate it then we'll do this again soon yeah absolutely
we have to we miss you okay I haven't gone far I'm only I'm only as far as the
nearest ring right right well thank you all so much for watching this episode of
today in tech if you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and
subscribe to our Channel if you have any questions comments or maybe there's a
tech company that we miss that's doing a really great initiative please leave a
comment below thanks again for watching and we'll see you next time