i3 - November/December 2020 - 30

Policy

By Cindy Loffler Stevens

T EC H H U B

Tech for
Good

● Alibaba launched new health tech
features aimed at diagnosing cases and
finding a vaccine for the coronavirus.
● Apple released a screening tool and
website to help people stay informed
and take the proper steps to protect
their health based on the latest Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) guidance.
● Facebook has generated maps displaying population density, demographics and movement, enabling researchers
to decide where to send supplies or how
to mitigate an outbreak.
● Google announced a new $800+
million commitment, including ad
grants to help the World Health
Organization (WHO) and more than
100 global government agencies provide information on how to prevent the
spread of COVID-19, to support smalland medium-sized businesses with
Google Ads credits to reach their customers, and Google Cloud credits for
academic institutions and researchers
to study therapies and vaccines.
● IBM partnered with the White House
and U.S. Department of Energy to
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create a consortium of supercomputers
to fight against COVID-19. Also it
expanded its 2020 Call for Code Global
Challenge to ask the world's developers
to build solutions for COVID-19 with
winners announced in October.
● Kinsa's The U.S. Health Weather
Map is a visualization of seasonal illness
linked to fever, specifically influenza-like
illness, based on aggregate, anonymized
data from its network of smart thermometers and mobile apps.
● The website, nCoV2019.live, created
by 17-year-old Avi Schiffmann, tracks
coronavirus deaths, number of local
and global cases and includes an interactive map, information on the disease
and a Twitter feed. It updates every
minute, and pulls data from the WHO,
CDC and elsewhere.

Virtual Learning

As teachers, students and parents scrambled to grasp remote learning operations
following lockdowns, tech companies
stepped in. Even many schools are adopting a hybrid approach that requires at
least some of the course or materials to

be online. Interest in remote learning
tools and virtual learning has spiked
among tech companies in 2020.
● AT&T committed $10 million to the
Distance Learning Fund in the wake of
COVID-19 school closures to give parents, students and teachers tools they
need for at-home learning.
● Google is offering schools free access
to its Hangouts Meet app during Covid19. It also donated 4,000 Chromebook
laptops and pledged free internet access
to 100,000 U.S. households.
● Microsoft invested $1 million in
Kano, a company focused on teaching
kids how to code.
● Sony Corp launched a $100 million
fund to support those affected by the
coronavirus, including support for children and educators working remotely.
● YouTube's resource, Learn@Home,
highlights educational YouTube channels that students can watch at home.
● zSpace, a California-based startup,
has created an AR/VR-enabled tablet
used by schools to teach concepts such
as electricity, circuits, the periodic table
and geometry to K-12 students.

FG Trade/Getty Images

s the COVID-19
coronavirus continues into the winter,
tech companies are responding to the outbreak and providing solutions to keep the
world connected and informed.
Here are just a few examples
of companies that are
responding to the challenges
posed by the pandemic.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

10/20/20 2:39 PM

https://ncov2019.live/

i3 - November/December 2020

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