Silicon Industry Post COVID – What to Look Forward To
The pandemic has bought in new normalcy in various aspects of our life. Post-COVID will experience a different way of life than it was before. The silicon industry experienced a lot of trends shift from pre-COVID time to COVID time and post-COVID time. The trends and opportunities have taken a long turn to a different perspective than before. With the rapid jump in technology demand, the IT Industry, which majorly served organizations is now impacting individual lives and society as well. This article discusses the transformation that the Technology Industry has picked up during the pandemic which changes the overall future shape of the industry.
Extensive Digitalization
The onset of COVID saw extensive digitalization in various fields. This is predicted to be carried along and after the pandemic to a larger scale. As the COVID eased along the last few months, the Technology industry saw a boost in hiring numbers with the requirement for more freshers and experienced heads. The primary reason for this was the rapid digitalization that happened during the lockdowns. Post-COVID, the overall shift to digital methods is expected to rise with new ideas. From individuals to large-scale organizations, COVID has brought in a radical change in the use of technology. This comes with the demand for a large number of extra workers and a whole new set of projects and ideas. Interestingly, shopping trends have also shifted online due to their ease of access and frequency discounts, although this might not deprive people of physical shopping.
Hype in Cybersecurity
With the shift of users from real-world to complete online, hackers took advantage of the large-scale presence in online sites and forums. This resulted in the unfortunate event of a rise in hacking and cyber security breaches, ranging from individual users to organizations at all scales. These highlighted the fragility of various computer systems and pinpointed the fact that they are vulnerable if targeted against. The lockdowns catalyzed the need for cybersecurity specialists. Post-COVID and above, there is a large demand for digital security and its application among various sectors to protect user data. With a rapid rise in digitalization, the need for cybersecurity also rises due to mass user interaction and data generation. The dark web during lockdowns witnessed the greatest number of hackings and user details posted on the dark web for free. Major attacks against tech giants showed that we are never alone in the online world. Although various digital security measures have been kept in place, it is not a full-stop fix to the problem.
A major application of digital security is in financial institutions like Banks. With a surge in online transactions globally, the financial security has been compromised in various parts of the globe with financial security breaches reaching dangerously high.
Technology for Societal Benefits
The pandemic in total showed how certain parts of our society are not as strong as we thought. Sectors such as Healthcare and Agriculture are very sensitive and require immediate attention since they offer the basic survival needs – Health and Food. Halfway through the pandemic, the rise for applying technology to real-world problems has taken a rise more than ever. “CT Scan images from hospitals” gave rise to predicting COVID infection using ML, thus assisting doctors. “COVID can spread through the exchange of physical money” gave rise to digital payment platforms and more. The onset of the virus fired the demand for solving various social problems such as Healthcare, Climate, etc. using newer technologies. Many organizations and start-ups have already prepped their base on real-world problem-solving.
EdTech – Transforming Education
Education has been face-to-face primarily with teacher-student interaction. The pandemic called an end to this with E-Learning platforms on demand. The fashion of EdTech is still being continued with students getting better platforms for self-learning. With the sharp demand for EdTech by schools and colleges, there have been significant developments in the education sector by bringing in technology. Despite reopening colleges and schools globally, these platforms are still in demand by the learners. EdTech has bought in an upside-down shift in the sector in comparison with the previous education system. Self-Paced learning and Peer-Reviewed works are expected to be the new trend in the sector. Education institutions often combine E-Learning platforms with online classes.
Automation More Than Ever
Mass unemployment is the result of organizations removing heads from their list to cope up with the losses. For a few, this was temporary, but for others, this meant a major shift from manual to automation. Manufacturing industries saw a major shift to automation technologies from manual to tackle such situations in the future. Mass firing, hiring cost, time, and money from the company in comparison with deploying automation systems. In the new era, many tasks can be automated by intelligent robot systems which proved better efficiency and lesser costs in comparison with a human. Industries often kept the idea of automation on pause since a sudden change is not feasible. The pandemic bought in a loss of employees and an uncertain future, bringing the companies to a point to decide to shift to automation.
Niche Technologies is on its Way
Newer technologies such as Data Science and Machine Learning have found its’ way through the pandemic. With technology getting applied to various parts of society and with large-scale expansion in digitalization, Data Science has a lot of data now available to bring out a good chance. This is predicted to increase steeply as the digitalization trend continues. With users and companies generation copious amounts of data daily, there comes the requirement of Cloud and Analytics experts to store and manage these data. Technological developments in 2020 showed that the growth of domains like Cloud and Data Science is in correlation with the rise in digitalization. Software delivery models such as SAAS have got wide attention because with the shift of people to online, there has been a significant increase in internet usage.
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