Bill Gates on Corona virus pandemic ..

A *TED Connect* talk Bill Gates gave yesterday to Chris Anderson of 52 minutes duration. If you are interested in knowing more about this pandemic spread and how to contain it, this talk will be interesting and definitely worth listening .

Bill Gates tries to explain 

1. why testing of virus by using self swabs and isolation of patients is very important. 

2. Whether the blood serum of recovered patients will help us cater the needs of at least 3 patients every week ? 

3. Is therapeutic acceleration of vaccine development possible? 

4. Will the economic impact be disastrous for the poor world  ?

5. Can countries and companies help each other in these times of crisis ?

6. What are the lessons for humanity to get ready for the next pandemic  ?

7. Why kids and students need be mentored to switch over to the online format?

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re_not_ready?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

George 

Ideal patient arrival distribution during a health crisis ..

At the time of a pandemic  which curve of patient density distribution is ideal for hospitals and the country's healthcare system as a whole ?

Blue and red curves are the probability density curves of the normal continuous probability distribution. Red has low variance or spread unlike the blue curve which has high spread or variance. 

The blue curve has large std deviation and a lower peak (lower mode) and hence less strain on the medical system, as patients do not all come at one shot to the hospital as in the case of the red curve.

The patient arrivals in the blue curve are spread over larger time ensuring beds and other infrastructure are available and better used, helping cure more patients and less deaths. The peak happens after some time giving enough bandwidth for the system to get its acts together..

The red curve signifies greater stress on the existing healthcare system over a shorter period of time, resulting in deficiency of service and hence large casualities. This is what happened in New Yotk and baffled healthcare professionals and decision makers.

George 

Avoiding boredom during lockdown period

*Avoiding boredom during lockdown period*

Henrietta Fore, Exe. Dir, UNICEF.

Point 1. stick to routines - exercises, take bath, dress up yourself, read

Point 2. stay connected with friends and family -  look into one's hobbies, interests of your children 

Point 3 - engage in hobbies - solve puzzles, sing songs, practice new hobbies 

Point 4 -  set a time window where you you think about your worries and try to find solution for them

Point 5 - engage in well being practices - exercises, yoga, walking ..

Be positive,  things are going to change for the better..

George 

Digital Transformation amidst the Corona virus crisis

The Corona virus crisis has given the world a great opportunity to change and change it will be for the better. For most of us it is mainly based on three things,

1. how can I avoid the infection 

2. will I get my salary next month and 

3. will there be enough stocks and items around in the stores to buy

While the first and second situations are based more on the healthcare systems of the country and the financial strength of the economy and the markets, the third situation warrants an understanding of how the existing supply chains of the country need to be spruced up, digitally or otherwise, to be more effective an optimal in these times of challenges.

Digital Transformation of the supply chains is definitely going to happen and is one of the ways our lives are going to change for the better.

It is said that at least 100 million people in India (7.5% of the population, click here for the link) has transacted online last year. In Europe and US that figure goes to 16% while in China this figure is close to 71%. It, no doubt is a reaffirmation of how much digital transformation is influencing the lives of ordinary Indians and the Chinese. In India, there is so much more scope for digital transformation and in China it has been making the change. One of the biggest impact of the Corona virus crisis on Chinese society is we find more people have crossed over from physical stores to online stores and have become part of giant e-commerce networks. 

Robots and ASRS systems have transformed Cainiao logistics big time ..

While going through an article from Harvard Business Review (Delivery technologies is keeping Chinese cities afloat through Corona virus, HBR, March 2020, click here), I was surprised to find how this corona virus incident has given China despite its deaths and the accompanying grief, an opportunity to go digital in a big way. Alibaba mediated to deliver goods and grocery to the people of Wuhan and Hubei by it's Cianiao network (click here) an opportunity to spruce up it's last mile delivery network by tying up with physical retailers and mom and pop stores in Chinese neighbourhoods to act as part of the giant delivery network of Alibaba.  

While Alibaba maintains the information systems, inventory warehouses and supply chains for the mom and pop stores across the Chinese geography, the mom and pop stores serve the main function of being dependable last mile delivery outlets for Alibaba, thereby increasing the reach and effectiveness of the Alibaba network. 

Will these incidents have a profound impact on the way Chinese population do future commerce or shopping, we have to wait and see. But it is more than clear that that this crisis has paved the way for more digital transformation initiatives from companies, organisation and governments not only in China, but from around the world. I was surprised to read from national newspapers in India, how Amazon in India is preparing to recruit about 100,000 employees for its last mile delivery network across India as during the virus crisis and the accompanying quarantine has motivated more Indians to go online and make purchases from Amazon, Flipkart etc.

Neither Europe nor India have networks the size of Alibaba, so we cannot expect a Cainiao like last-mile delivery network to groom in Europe or India quick, but definitely we can expect great innovative initiatives from Amazon and Flipkart to spruce up their last-mile delivery network capability.

George

Great advice during this virus crisis from Anand Mahindra..

Sane advice from a great leader ..

While going through the daily news and information inputs on the Corona virus affecting the world, I was surprised at some sane solid advice that came from one of the top industrialists from India, Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra group.

As the head of the Mahindra group and Harvard alumnus, I have always felt admiration for this person because he comes up with some of the sanest advice to people and businesses when the going gets touch. Moreover having the global exposure to talk and interfere meaningfully in any situation, his words of advice are always looked up to.

Anand Mahindra identifies 5 opportunities during these trying times for global entrepreneurship and businesses. 

He  urged all businesses to build “deeper personal relationship with customers" during the 'Virus Crisis'.

He said, the ‘Virus Crisis’ crisis presents business with challenges but also some unprecedented opportunities: 

1) We’ve acquired a precious resource: time for reflection. Use it to review strategies & portfolios. 

2) Press the RESET button & recalibrate all costs & overheads. 

3)Associates will have more time: solicit their ideas for business improvement. 

4) Use the lull to build deeper personal relationships with customers. 

5) We don’t know how long the containment might drag on, but prepare the business for a U or even V shaped recovery!  👍🙂

As businesses across the world have mildly  pressed the brake pedal and are taking time, reevaluating opportunities and options, exploring new frontiers for great ideas and to provide more value to customers, the five points listed above will definitely be a value add to businesses, at least in Asia.

Additionally, I wish to add two more points to the list during these times when we are redirecting the masts of our boats.. 

6. Plan the business growth keeping in mind the thousands of species of plants and animals on planet earth, which are threatened or on the verge of extinction.  Let us spend a moment listening to their cries of agony, confinement and isolation.  

7. Let us take a renewed pledge that all our future developmental efforts will be taken keeping mother nature as our associate and not our competitor. Sustainability is not an option for business, it is an inevitable element of all businesses across the world. 

Let the Corona virus crisis be one of redemption and reclamation of planet earth.

George 

Impact of Corona virus on the global economy ..

The world is presently in the grip of a pandemic - the nCovid 2019 virus. Barely 500 microns in size, it is presently holding the global community to ransom.

At least in the 20th century we have had four major economic disruptions as given in the picture. The world has recovered quite successfully from them, often learning some hard lessons and yes, incurring heavy loss of life, especially the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, that resulted in killing almost 50 million people wold wide.

It is interesting to know how previous epidemics or pandemics have affected the business world, especially United States of America. (check left pic..)

The big doubt with the business community of the world is,  will the present economic disruption of global markets be tracked,  will it follow the V type, U type or L type revival pattern or scenario. (check right pic..) It is of concern to find when indeed it will recover.

V type scenario is the most likely, there is a fall and an equally likely revival to the same levels as before with stronger sentiments.

The U type revival is slow and can take time to recover, while the L type revival is quick but the economic activity does not pick up to earlier levels and a drop in economic activity is observed. These two scenarios of the U and L type are undesirable. Industry and businesses want revival of the V type, where the business bounces back to the same levels of activity before or even better at times.

If we check all the epidemics that have affected the world in the 20th century all have been of the V  type, indicating a strong revival and growth.  Economists and global policy makers are of the firm opinion that even the Covid 2019 revival will be of the V type.

While the demand side impact like drop or fall in customer confidence and market confidence seems a real possibility, the problem will lie in the supply side fluctuations. With global supply chains under deep distress, it remains to be seen how the future industrial production across the world will get hit.

The lockdown happening in different parts of the world bringing human activities and business activities to a halt has to be viewed with all seriousness. Only positive thinking and good hygienic food practices can help the world climb out of this catastrophe.

The main points for this discussion cams out of a discussion in Alliance University Bangalore of an  HBR article of March 2020 titled, What corona virus could mean for the global economy  (click here). Pic courtesy Harvard Business Review.

George

Blended Learning FDP, IIM Bangalore, 7 March 2020 ..

On Saturday 7 March 2020, I was at IIM Bangalore early morning for the Faculty Development Programme (FDP) on Blended Learning for academic leaders from across India. It was surprising to see that in spite of the Corona virus scare, there were more than a hundred participants for the Workshop.

How it all started in the morning of 7 March for FDP on Blended Learning

It started right on time at 9.30 AM with a brief introduction by the Chair E-learning, IIMB Prof. Jose. 

The presentation was really world class, it touched upon many unknown aspects of E-learning stats and data from across the world.

The most gripping mood throughout the session and presentations from the invited speakers was the fact that E-learning is here to stay in the world. While the conventional chalk and blackboard education system in the building called college is what has been followed for more than 300 years across the world, the time has come high to change this to the modern digitally interfered system.

Interesting stats from the global MOOC providers ..

It was not long back, I remember having made the presentation on  the live e-learning setup in Goa Engineering College (first in South India) at a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) convention in Bangalore palace in 2005, talking about the Learning Management System (LMS) software MOODLE.

It has to be reaffirmed that at that time Bangalore and its institutes, even IIMB, was new to Learning Management Systems in public domain. 

How MOOCs are provided on different subjects ..

By getting the E-learning site of my employer the Govt College of Engineering Goa learning site go live by mid 2004, I was having an edge over educational institutions in the region in the e-learning domain. My almamater IIT Bombay went live in 2004 May or so, exactly one month after Goa Engineering college went live.

It is really very encouraging to find with enough public funds, IIM Bangalore is doing workshops on blended learning for faculty from across the country, though I am not sure how effective is blended learning in their  own curriculum and what is the level of acceptance (not disclosed..).

Full Online degrees offered by top 3 global MOOC providers ..

IIMBx now offers more than 50 MOOCs prepared in-house by it's own faculty (for the public at a cost) or at Edx, the same can be audited at zero cost.

Course Central is considered to be the largest MOOC aggregator website, (not provider) and its offerings are given in the picture. The number of learners, the courses, micro-credentials and degrees given by the most popular MOOC providers of the world are given in the  exhibit. 

The hype curve gives an idea of how educational technologies and innovations are getting accepted across the educational domains of the world in different
countries.

Hype Curve on E-learning technologies .. Courtesy IIMB

As per the hype curve, MOOCs are at a dip now (having peaked 2 years back) and soon, it will mature and plateau.
We find currently AI elearning courses are at it's peak and virtual reality is picking up. It is observed, once the AI courses are popular, the practical applications and acceptance of the technologies also pick up fast.

Compared to previous years, the online full scale qualifying degree courses offered by the 3 major MOOC sites of the world, Coursera, EdX (from US) and Future Learn (from UK) have increased from previous years. As of 2019, there are about 15, 10 and 23 online degree courses in different disciplines ranging from Management to technical subjects respectively offered by the three MOOC sites.

How to leverage e blended learning in our institutions ..

This also means that from the luxury of the home, one can appear and graduate in as much as 48 online degree courses offered by the top Universities of the world. 

Prof. Manikutty, adjunct faculty from IIMB (left in picture with me) took the session of how through global literature he could teach different leadership styles starting with the history of Spanish civil war using the fictitious character Don Quixote. Prof Manikutty used blended learning here. He explained how he used videos and gave interesting multi-media assignments to the students to illustrate different leadership styles.

Some of the challenges of blended learning ..

E-learning by MOOCs is facing challenges, like poor awareness for existing faculty. Faculty mostly are not tech savy and this restrains them from using technology for their teaching sessions.

Even though Corona virus scare was very much prevalent on 7th March in Bangalore, the high attendance at the FDP speaks high about the quality of this FDP. It is also tells us how much important has elearning, MOOC and blended learning become in the daily lives of faculty and students of the present day society.

This was the 16th version of the FDP. I am sure in the history of IIMB there would not be any FDP which has been as successful as this blended learning FDP.

With Prof. Manikutty (left) ..

I am not sure how successful IIMB has been in convincing the faculty members at IIMB to follow the blended learning curriculum, whether they walk the talk themselves. In Alliance University, out of a faculty strength of approximately 300 across the schools, hardly less than 10 are using blended learning in their teaching process.

MOOCs could be used as a faculty Development Programme for faculty in enhancing knowledge. Institute faculty would get points based on the number of MOOCS they pursue with certificates, leading to high quality professional development.

I am sure IIMB will partner with other Institutes to bring such high quality FDP to benefit faculty members from other institutes in the future.

An area where I found discussion lacking at the FDP was on feedback. Any blended learning exercise can have faltering steps in it's journey. Understanding them and taking corrective actions is a sure step to address issues of Blended learning acceptance among the faculty.

FEEDBACK - Feedback on the student performance is an area where digital interventions play a great role. Ever since I started using elearning, quizzes have been a topic of great interest for the student community.

Immediately after a topic is taken in the class, either in the same session or the following session the student should be checked on what is his/her understanding or comprehension of the topic.

Prof. Jose winding up the very fruitful day session on
Blended Learning

A small 20 to 30 question quiz to check the understanding of the different concept is an excellent tool to realise this. The students are excited to take the quiz and are elated to get good scores or meditate over why they got lower scores. Immediate feedback to quiz is a great learning tool ..

In the e-learning setup, when one is exposed to quick and effective feedback, the impact is great. In addition a survey to find how the student community appreciates the Blended learning and inviting suggestions is a great tool that reinforces student learning.

Importance of feedback.. E-feedback is fast and effective ..

Click here for a form on collecting feedback on blended learning, which I administer to my class .. Even though I have been using blended learning (not self-developed MOOCs) for the past fifteen years in my teaching process, the IIMB exposure gave me insight into MOOC creation aiding blended learning. This was very helpful. Interaction with peers at other academic institutions around the world is a very fruitful and beneficial exercise for all of us.

Here is the online feedback, more than 70% agree to online quizzes as a blended learning strategy, (click here for the feedback received on online quiz administration) I have received from students when I asked them to give their feedback on the online quizzes I administer every week, as part of the Blended Learning exercise.

George.. (Thanks to Prof. Jose for permission to use some of his slides in this writeup on the FDP)

Why are practical AI projects failing or taking longer than expected ?

It is an important to understand why AI projects across the world are slow to take off or do not yield the required results. The study one on thousands of exeutives by the authors o a HBR published study has attempted to find what are the reasons for that. It is found from the study that the problem for failures or very late realisation of success of AI projects is mainly due to human shortcomings and mis-understanding.

1. a very constrained and restricted approach instead of a cross organisational approach

2. from leadership-driven decision making instead of a data-driven decision making
3. from a risk-averse setup instead of an experimental and agile setup

I was going through the article, Building the AI powered organisation, by Fountaine, McCarthy and Saleh in HBR, Aug '19, click here for the paper,

Even though executives think AI projects are like plug-n-pay setups, actually it is not so. Only about 8% of all AI projects have given any semblance of meaningful returns yet.

There are many steps that could be initiated that could help address this issue quite amicably and effectively.

• First and foremost, get the workers to realise that AI is not meant to replace them but augment their existing skills and help them become better decision makes and efficient workers.
• The second approach would be to focus on initiatives that bring results within a matter of months than years.
• It does not benefit the industry to concentrate more in the central hub installation an less in the spokes. The applications need to be spread across installations as need arises. The decentralised arrangement was found to be successful in AI applications than the centralised hub and spoke model. Decentralising implementation at the spokes can be a better way to ensure success of AI initiatives.
• As we have seen and studied from digital companies across the past seven decades that have grown and matured, AI organisations also need to develop a unique style of development, planning and implementation, untested as of the present, to ensure AI projects do not get dragged and start giving their intended benefits at an early date.

New future AI applications will need difficult and new workflows, processes and culture at the workplace which we are yet to understand and define in clear terms. Experience and feedback from executives can contribute a lot to understand and navigate this area better.

George..

Open Forum session on AI - Machine Learning

Dr. Shobana engaging the audience with ML basics, 5 March '20

As part of the Open Forum of Alliance University, Bangalore, we had an interesting talk by Dr. Shobana Padmanabhan of Alliance College of Engineering and Design Bangalore speaking to the faculty and students of Alliance School of Business, semester 1 and 4 in LT 206 in Alliance College of Engineering and Design on the 5th of March 2020 AN.

The session was on an interesting aspect of AI, Machine Learning,  the aspects relating to simple linear regression and non-linear regression models. The difference between the simple model and the ML models, between testing samples and training samples and how ML could be trained for millions of data points and be able to predict into the future. 

While normal mathematical models work on the input to give the output, Machine Learning models work on the training input and output data to give the details of the model. The more accurate model which is built on millions of different input and output data points can then be used to predict accurately the output for any input data. All these mathematical models existed beforehand, but lack of computing power was a major hindrance to play around with large volumes of input and output data. The present day availability of cheap processing power has provided a boost to Machine Learning.

View of LT 206, Technical Block, ACED.

This is the beginning of the series of interactions in the world of AI, more to follow in the coming weeks in the AU campus. The basic knowledge of AI and Machine Learning should eventually help us to delve deep into collaborative Intelligence which is going to have great impact on how humans and machines would collaborate in the future, be it driver-less vehicles or AI powered robots or devices. 

With AI already at our doorsteps, staring at us, checking our readiness to prepare for the AI and robotic revolution to follow, all these preparatory steps taken in different academic campuses and offices across the world are small sure steps to ensure a bright future for humanity. Alliance University is proud to be one of those organisations with a global outlook.

I am reminded of these famous quotations by famous personalities on the potential of AI:

 “AI is a core transformative way be which we are rethinking how we are doing everything - Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet  

“Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.” —Ray Kurzweil

The better we are informed of AI and its impact, the better we can manage the transition to an AI driven world.

George..