scholarly journals Remote Working Challenges and Opportunities During Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-03
Author(s):  
Dr. KDV Prasad

Remote working or working from home is now buzz the world across the globe as the Covid-19 pandemic changed the working topography enormously. In Remote work, where the staff or professional works beyond the traditional office settings, not necessary from a particular location. Several organizations across the globe irrespective of the type of organizations asked their employees to work from home wherever possible. Lockdowns were imposed in several counties which significantly affected the economies. The organizations allowed the employees more flexibility to work from home and have their schedules. The organizations are flexible even to modify the policies and procedures to get adjusted to this new environment. Eventually, the working class also adjusted to the Covid-19 pandemic environment and tried their best to deliver their respective outputs to meet the objectives of an organization balancing his/her requirements. It was reported that there remote working yielded much more productivity saving the commuting time as the employee have reasonable control and plan their activities in such a way that employee’s personal and professional life existed peacefully, where he/she can work in full potential and personal satisfaction

In developing nations, and on the African continent in particular, the uptake and impact of technological and other developments is often slower than in other parts of the world. While pockets of development exist on the continent as a source of work, education and access much of Africa remains trapped in a cycle of poverty.In this worldwide health crisis, the medical industry is looking for new technologies to monitor and controls the spread of COVID19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. AI is one of such technology which can easily track the spread of this virus, identifies the high-risk patients, and is useful in controlling this infection in real-time. Educators have created online classrooms in a matter of days. Information resources to educate the public and track the spread of the virus using big data sprang up seemingly overnight. Finally, those of us fortunate enough to have jobs that allow us to work from home are learning the full potential of the communication technologies that the 21stcentury has bestowed upon us. None of these tasks have been easy, but individuals and organizations have demonstrated the motivation and mind shifts needed to research, innovate, and act quickly.AI embodies the field of knowledge that seeks to create machines (computers) thatcan emulate human cognitive functions such as learning, reasoning, understanding, vision, perception, recognition, and problem solving to a reasonable level. Computers that have AI capabilities are currently being used in severalreal-worlddomains to solve problems. AI has already played a significant role in each stage of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Some areas where we saw immediate applications include the processing of large amounts of data to find patterns that could lead to the discovery of potential treatment drugs; as well astreating infected people.The novel aspect of this pandemic involves several unknowns and is likely to have a lingering impact for years to come. However, despite the current climate, I am somewhat comforted that the history of past pandemics and crises suggests an eventual recovery plan for the world. After all, necessity is the mother of all invention. New creations arise out of disruption.


Author(s):  
Prof. Swaha Shome ◽  
Prof. Davinder Suri

According to many, India has the potential to become one of the largest digitized economies in the world. By end of 2016, most sectors in the Indian economy ranging from healthcare to education, banking and finance as well as retail will face challenges and opportunities through digital disruption. In this fast changing scenario, the euphoria of new marketing opportunities may however be dampened by the reality of considering how sustainable such digital disruptions will be in the long run. One key element in this sustainability is the network readiness of the economy. The World Economic Forum publishes Networked Readiness Rankings for all economies where India is ranked 89 out of 143 countries for the year 2015 and India’s rank has been declining consistently declining since 2013. This is a clear indication that despite the digital revolution which is now called the fourth industrial revolution, India may not be able to harness its full potential if the networked readiness of the country does not improve. The services sector of the Indian economy which contributes close to 60 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product should see incremental growth as the networked readiness improves. This paper seeks to examine this relationship as well as the reasons for the declining rank on Network Readiness. Only when such challenges are addressed both by the private sector as well as the Government can we be confident that the digital disruption will indeed add a long run value for the economy.


Author(s):  
Akash Dutt Dubey ◽  
Shreya Tripathi

With almost one third of the world on a lockdown, the corporates and the offices have now rapidly shifted to working from home. Since no specific treatment has been suggested by any medical institution so far, World Health Organization has recommended that the only possible solution to be safe is to self-isolate and stay home. Due to this, the world has come to a screeching halt and the businesses have to be shifted to remote work. Work-from-Home is a very new experience for most of us and hence the perception of the people ranges from being very excited to very hopeless. This study aims to examine the sentiments of the people regarding Work-from-Home concept by analysing twitter activities posted on social media. Total 100,000 tweets were analysed for this study. Results indicate that Work-from-Home concept was taken positively by the people. The emotions associated with most of the tweets were of trust and anticipation indicating that this concept is being welcomed by the people.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Monika Christoph

The possibility of faster and more available travel makes the term “citizen of the world” more real than ever and reflects the globalizing digital reality. Digital nomadism understood as a new dimension of remote work has certainly acquired a new meaning at the turn of 2020 and 2021. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 significantly accelerated the digitization of work and education areas, which had a valid impact on our socio-economic functioning. Interpersonal relations have changed, the digital educational and professional reality has given a new shape to human expectations; space and time take on a new meaning, our everyday life is situated in an increasing technological dimension. Digital nomadism growing in the culture of innovation as a phenomenon that automatically responds to current changes in social, educational and professional life is assessed nowadays positively as well as critically. However, regardless of the assessment of this phenomenon, it seems to be setting the direction of a new lifestyle. Showing the phenomenon of digital nomadism as a key perspective of changes in the labour market is the goal and the key issue presented in this article. Analysis of changes in the sphere of work is the starting point for presenting the digital nomadism phenomenon. The topics of educational and professional aspirations of young people, issues of matching and professional suitability as well as models of contemporary careers are also taken up. The summary includes educational trends that are worth developing in the future, also as part of lifelong learning. The article presents a theoretical type of study. The aims and methodology of the cited research results are indicated in the parentheses.


2022 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Denae Ford ◽  
Margaret-Anne Storey ◽  
Thomas Zimmermann ◽  
Christian Bird ◽  
Sonia Jaffe ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world to its core and has provoked an overnight exodus of developers who normally worked in an office setting to working from home. The magnitude of this shift and the factors that have accompanied this new unplanned work setting go beyond what the software engineering community has previously understood to be remote work. To find out how developers and their productivity were affected, we distributed two surveys (with a combined total of 3,634 responses that answered all required questions) weeks apart to understand the presence and prevalence of the benefits, challenges, and opportunities to improve this special circumstance of remote work. From our thematic qualitative analysis and statistical quantitative analysis, we find that there is a dichotomy of developer experiences influenced by many different factors (that for some are a benefit, while for others a challenge). For example, a benefit for some was being close to family members but for others having family members share their working space and interrupting their focus, was a challenge. Our surveys led to powerful narratives from respondents and revealed the scale at which these experiences exist to provide insights as to how the future of (pandemic) remote work can evolve.


Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Paul Burgess

The author contends that throughout the duration of the present conflict in NorthernIreland, the world has been repeatedly given a one-dimensional image of this culture depicting it as mainly a product of ethnicity and also a reflection of class sentiment and lived experience.As drummer and songwriter of Ruefrex, a musical band internationally renowned for its songs about the Troubles conflict in Northern Ireland, Burgess discusses the need to express Protestant cultural traditions and identity through words and music. Citing Weber’s argument that individuals need to understand the world and their environment and that this understanding is influenced by perceptions of world order and attitudes and interpretations of symbolic systems or structures, the author argues that losing the importance of symbolic structures in relation to actual events will result in failure to understand why communities embrace meaning systems that are centrally informed by symbol and ritual. In his mind, rather than seeking to promote an understanding of Protestant or Catholic reality, it is important to speculate how the practice of difference might be used in developing any kind of reality of co-operation and co-ordination


Author(s):  
Thomas Hardy

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?' Jude Fawley, poor and working-class, longs to study at the University of Christminster, but he is rebuffed, and trapped in a loveless marriage. He falls in love with his unconventional cousin Sue Bridehead, and their refusal to marry when free to do so confirms their rejection of and by the world around them. The shocking fate that overtakes them is an indictment of a rigid and uncaring society. Hardy's last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure caused outrage when it was published in 1895. This is the first truly critical edition, taking account of the changes that Hardy made over twenty-five years. It includes a new chronology and bibliography and substantially revised notes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-115
Author(s):  
Sreejith Murali

This article focuses on the educational efforts of Syed Firoz Ashraf in the East Jogeshwari area of Mumbai and places his work in the context of the increasing communalisation of social life and education in a poor working class suburb in Mumbai city. Muslim community has been ghettoised in the metropolis to specific areas especially since the riots of 1992-93, increasing their vulnerability. For more than twenty years ‘Uncle’, as he is affectionately called, has been running after-school classes for children from the working class neighbourhoods of Jogeshwari and Juhu Lane. He has worked within the system to enhance opportunities for higher education for children, and to end the humiliation and indignity associated with educational failure. As Uncle says, there is hope as more and more children break out of the confines of their locality and step out into the world through higher education.


2002 ◽  
Vol 758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khershed P. Cooper

ABSTRACTLayered Manufacturing (LM) refers to computer-aided manufacturing processes in which parts are made in sequential layers relatively quickly. Parts that are produced by LM can be formed from a wide range of materials such as photosensitive polymers, metals and ceramics in sizes from a centimeter to a few meters with sub-millimeter feature resolutions. LM has found use in diverse areas including biomedical engineering, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, defense, electronics and design engineering. The promise of LM is the capability to make customized complex-shaped functional parts without specialized tooling and without assembly. LM is still a few years away from fully realizing its promise but its potential for manufacturing remains high. A few of the fundamental challenges in materials processing confronting the community are improving the quality of the surface finish, eliminating residual stress, controlling local composition and microstructure, achieving fine feature size and dimensional tolerance and accelerating processing speed. Until these challenges are met, the applicability of LM and its commercialization will be restricted. Sustained scientific activity in LM has advanced over the past decade into many different areas of manufacturing and has enabled exploration of novel processes and development of hybrid processes. The research community of today has the opportunity to shape the future direction of science research to realize the full potential of LM.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Hutchcroft

AbstractPrevious decades' celebrations of the triumph of democracy were frequently based on mainstream analyses that displayed two major theoretical problems. First, conceptualisations of democracy based on ‘minimal pre-conditions’ commonly conflated the formal establishment ofdemocratic structureswith the far more complex and historically challenging creation ofsubstantive democracy. Second, a deductive and generally ahistorical model asserting fixed stages of ‘democratic transition’ diverted attention from deeper and more substantive examination ofstruggles for power among social forces within specific historical contexts. By adhering to minimalist conceptions of democracy and simplistic models of democratic change, mainstream analysts quite often chose to overlook many underlying limitations and shortcomings of the democratic structures they were so keen to celebrate. Given more recent concerns over ‘authoritarian undertow’, those with the normative goal of deepening democracy must begin by deepening scholarly conceptualisations of the complex nature of democratic change. This analysis urges attention to the ‘source’ and ‘purpose’ of democracy. What were the goals of those who established democratic structures, and to what extent did these goals correspond to the ideals of democracy? In many cases throughout the world, ‘democracy’ has been used as a convenient and very effective means for both cloaking and legitimising a broad set of political, social, and economic inequalities. The need for deeper analysis is highlighted through attention to the historical character of democratic structures in the Philippines and Thailand, with particular attention to the sources and purposes of ‘democracy’ amid on-going struggles for power among social forces. In both countries, albeit coming forth from very different historical circumstances, democratic structures have been continually undermined by those with little commitment to the democratic ideal: oligarchic dominance in the Philippines, and military/bureaucratic/monarchic dominance in Thailand. Each country possesses its own set of challenges and opportunities for genuine democratic change, as those who seek to undermine elite hegemony and promote popular accountability operate in very different socio-economic and institutional contexts. Efforts to promote substantive democracy in each setting, therefore, must begin with careful historical analysis of the particular challenges that need to be addressed.


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