Webinar Insights: Global Tech Communities Amid Covid-19

COVID19 is bringing huge changes and disruptions to the way communities communicate and gather due to social distancing and community spread. Still, hi-tech communities must come up with creative solutions to these never-before-seen stressors in order to take advantage of the opportunities available to come out even stronger and more robust than before.

On April 7th, we hosted a global webinar discussion with tech leaders representing close to a dozen different countries spanning 3 continents. Below is a set of takeaways, problems, requests and next steps from our discussion.

Key Takeaways

1. Tech communities are no longer tied to a location, providing an opportunity to expedite the transition from thinking local to thinking global. The world has turned remote in a matter of weeks, tearing down limitations created by borders.
2. This new era is not just about surviving, but an opportunity for startups and tech communities at wide to transform, trace and ideate on how the future will look like. Difficulties and challenges created by external factors are to be seen as information that promotes creativity, not barriers that stunt it. This is a turning point in modern human history.
3. Key growth tech areas now: tools for remote collaboration/learning, payments, foodTech, logistics, smart mobility, biotech, health diagnostic systems, drones for tracing and sanitation
4. Online communities are becoming of key importance, yet many people are exploiting them as marketing strategies to simply promote their products and services. A community-centered approach emphasizes giving back to the community, not just taking and exploiting.
5. Communities can lose meaning if sharing, helping and mission are not at its core.
6. 5G is being rolled out in Japan, and bandwidth will be a key differentiator for societal and economic development more so in covid era. Making 5G pervasive and accessible for all will be a fundamental need.
7. Digital transformation for organizations is more important now than ever, yet most companies were not prepared to work from home.
8. Investors are holding investments and being more conservative, but in the next few months and weeks, big opportunities will emerge in the areas mentioned above.
9. Economic stimulus packages are going to the traditional sectors and not to the startup communities, and many small and medium enterprises (SME) will not qualify. Thus potentially maintaining a broken status quo post COVID era!

Problems

1. SMEs and startup funding will be scant in Q2, Q3. What can be done to help with funding and other resources like mentorship and connections?
2. Are there any alternative technologies for 5g, and giving equitable access for the wider population with 5g and other technologies?
3. How to run remote sessions, meetings, and workshops more effectively and which tools work best to coordinate?
4. There is already a huge shift in how we are working, commuting, and socializing. Tech will be the main driver here, what segments of society can be brought in the community and make it more inclusive?

Tools + Links

• LikedIn Profiles doc from yesterdays webinar
• Minutes from yesterdays webinar
• https://toasty.ai (collaboration, connecting)
• www.soapy.care (Soapy has developed a Hygiene Micro-Station, powered by IoT, and computer vision. We turn hand-wash into data and help to fight COVID-19 by giving people smart guidance on how to perform the proper hand-washing procedures.)
• https://mural.co (collaboration)
• https://klaxoon.com/ (collaboration)
• https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app (collaboration)
• Air purifiers (Eleclean, ible, PURUS air)

Requests + Announcements

1. Elad is looking for mentors for the COVID hackathon he’s organizing https://hackcorona.world/ (email mintzer.elad@gmail.com)
2. Doan be hosting this online Blockchain Olympiad for Vietnam market https://www.ibcol.org/ (email kimiko@yellowblocks.org)

Creating Prototypes

If you have an idea or specific requirements for a web, mobile, or backend app. We can help to connect with a group of trusted developers who can help to create MVPs and fast prototypes. (if interested email a[at]latamtechmeetup[dot]com)

Next Steps

PLEASE JOIN OUR SLACK CHANNEL HERE.

We will follow up in slack on the points mentioned above and create:

1. Clusters of people around the problems above
2. Deliverables
3. Request and help section
4. Set a date for the next community webinar!