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Origo is here to support you during this new normal. Get the latest updates in our blog

Iceland is among the world’s leading nations in the roll-out of its Covid-19 vaccination program, thanks to a system developed by Origo to track and control the flow of individuals through the vaccination process.

The system enables a level of efficiency and transparency that is crucial in keeping the country on track to achieve its target of vaccinating the majority of the population by the end of July.

Iceland is using four vaccines: Pfizer BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Moderna and Janssen. Origo’s system keeps track of every individual who needs to be vaccinated and calls them in according to the vaccine they have been allocated. The system also enables registration of people in the defined priority groups.

Registration is simple. Each person receives a text message containing a bar code. When they go to be vaccinated, the bar code is scanned and all the information about the vaccination is automatically entered into all the relevant healthcare databases: the Chief Epidemiologist's vaccination database, the individual’s medical record and the Icelandic citizen health portal, Heilsuvera. A vaccination certificate can then be accessed via the portal.

The Origo system has been extremely effective in ensuring a steady, efficient flow of patients through Iceland’s vaccination sites. This has helped to maximise the speed of the roll-out pro-gramme, avoiding slack periods or blockages, which would slow the process down.

Iceland is very advanced in terms of digital development and automation of its healthcare system. It was the first country to issue electronic vaccination certificates. A high degree of interconnectivity has created a digital healthcare system that is extremely secure and transparent. 

For the past 30 years, Origo’s Healthcare Solutions have been at the forefront of Iceland’s electronic healthcare infrastructure. It is the development of this infrastructure that has made it possible to develop a vaccination management system so rapidly in response to the urgent need to keep Ice-landers safe.

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Iceland is among the world’s leading nations in the roll-out of its Covid-19 vaccination programme, thanks to a system developed by Origo to track and control the flow of individuals through the vaccination process.

How Origo has optimised Iceland's vaccination program

Origo has developed a system that keeps track of vaccination against Covid-19 and also controls the flow of individuals on the vaccination site.

How Origo has optimised Iceland's vaccinations

 Origo has purchased a 100% share in Syndis’ internet security solutions. With the purchase Origo and Syndis will join forces under Syndis’ brand name. The goal of the purchase is in part to build a strong unit that offers complete digital security services and assistance and develops protections from cyberattacks, identity theft and data theft.

 The merger will create a powerful company with a wide array of services and products in the field of information security. Close to 20 security specialists will have positions in the company as 9 employees will transfer from Origo to Syndis. Our expertise and experience from both companies will give our clients the opportunity to increase their security awareness and be prepared to protect themselves from any kinds of cyberattacks that are constantly changing and developing.  

Digital development has become leading in the operation of companies and calls for a new approach to protecting products and data. The need for monitoring the operations and implementing preventative solutions has increased. We see a great opportunity to expand as our digital transformation and development gains ground, and we are certain that Origo’s specialized knowledge and experience will increase Syndis’ ability to specialize in all-encompassing security solutions. Our goal is to create one strong unit that specializes in security services, advice and solutions and we believe the group, that will operate under Syndis’ brand name, is exceptionally well prepared to take on the task.

Origo has for years built up a strong team of specialists in security solutions and services with a strong base of suppliers such as Cloudfare, CSIS, Microsoft, Infopulse and IBM. The group that will join Syndis will greatly improve and expand our supply of solution and knowledge. We will be able to offer around the clock monitoring of operational systems, increased internet safety and advice services for cloud solutions, perform external and internal security assessments, code review and education for employees as well as special training courses for programmers. Syndis will also aim to increase new developments and innovation in monitoring methods for our clients, risk analysis on greater web environment and advice and assist companies that need to meet security requirements to become or stay compliant to f.ex. PCI DSS.

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Syndis and Origo’s Security Solutions Unite

Origo has purchased a 100% share in Syndis’ internet security solutions. With the purchase Origo and Syndis will join forces under Syndis’ brand name. The goal of the purchase is in part to build a strong unit that offers complete digital security services and assistance and develops protections from cyberattacks, identity theft and data theft.

Syndis and Origo’s Security Solutions Unite 

More and more businesses are moving their IT infrastructure into the cloud, as the benefits of this third party, service-based model over outright ownership become increasingly apparent. The one question mark over cloud hosting is security. With cybercrime increasing and becoming more sophisticated year on year, isn’t cloud hosting akin to laying out your assets in public for hackers to plunder at will? 

This article explains why managed hosting offsite is actually more secure than keeping it in-house. 

Cloud hosting offers significant benefits in terms of cost, convenience and reliability. As a service-based model, it saves the capital outlay of buying the servers and software you need, as well as the cost of creating a suitable environment for keeping those assets cool and dry, the cost of maintenance and repair, and the cost of replacement as they become obsolete. 

This makes cloud hosting particularly beneficial to start-ups, who don’t have to worry about large capital outlays up front, nor the cost of scaling as the business grows. 

Hosted IT doesn’t just save these costs but delivers a better standard of service across the board. Servers are housed in purpose-built data centres, software is updated and backed up without fail and upgraded to the latest iteration as soon as it becomes available. There is no wasted capacity, nor lack of capacity. 

Hosting your IT in the cloud means it is available from anywhere, so employees can work remotely, share and access files in their own time on their own devices and not have the worry of losing everything if their computer crashes, gets lost or stolen. 

The reliability of your IT increases too. The systems you use are monitored every second of every day, so issues are fixed before they become a problem, thus saving damaging and costly down time. 

When considering IT security, the first threat that springs to mind these days is cybercrime. But that’s not the only threat to physical IT systems kept in-house. With physical assets on-site, fire, flood and theft pose a threat. Hosting your IT off-site ensures that whatever disasters may befall your physical environment, your systems will remain working and available. 

But the security threat concerning most businesses today comes from criminal hacks, such as phishing, malware and DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. 

Employees are your achilles heel. Carelessness with devices is, unfortunately, a very human trait and one that can open the door to all sorts of cyber attacks. With secure hosting in the cloud, however, the threat is mitigated because each device becomes merely a key to the vault, rather than the vault itself. Provided you protect those keys with secure passwords and two-factor authorisation (where a digital code is sent to a registered device as an additional layer of security at login), a laptop left on the train cannot be used to access your data. 

Malware and virus attacks are mitigated by keeping your software up to date. This is a given with managed hosting but not so much among businesses that manage their own hosting. Further protection is afforded by robust firewalls, network partitioning and the latest antivirus software. 

DDoS attacks are the biggest concern for businesses that rely on their website for delivering services to customers; for example, banks and e-commerce business. Criminals seek to bring the website down by bombarding it with traffic, denying the service to customers and costing the business huge sums of money. They then demand a ransom to call off the attack. 

Few businesses have the resources to defend themselves individually against DDoS attacks – it takes a vast network of linked web servers – but through managed hosting with Origo you can access the most effective DDoS protection system in the world, Cloudflare. Cloudflare’s network covers over 13 million internet properties in 150 countries and, at 42Tb, is 15 times bigger than the biggest DDoS attack ever recorded. 

 When it comes to securing your IT, it is a case of ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. Managed hosting gives you a much higher level of security than any individual business could achieve by bringing your systems within the protection of the crowd, while keeping your data private behind your own unique pass keys. 

Rather than worry about the security of cloud hosting, it’s those who choose to remain outside the cloud who are most at risk. 

Secure hosting: why you’re better off in the cloud 

More and more businesses are moving their IT infrastructure into the cloud, as the benefits of this third party, service-based model over outright ownership become increasingly apparent. The one question mark over cloud hosting is security.

Origo specialists are assisting the World Health Organization (WHO) in developing a digital vaccination certificate. Iceland is the first country to issue a digital vaccination certificate and the solution, developed by Origo, has attracted worldwide attention.

The vaccination project is twofold and involves vaccinations followed by the issuance of vaccination certificates. "We have been working hard over the past few weeks on the solution that manages vaccinations. Development went smoothly and we are confident that we can respond swiftly to any changes that might come," says Björk Grétarsdóttir, Project Manager at Origo.

Iceland was the first country to issue vaccination certificates and several hundred Icelanders have already received them.

"The vaccination certificates are part of a European cooperative effort. People can apply for a certificate as soon as they have completed the second vaccination. Certificates can be applied for through the Icelandic Citizen Health Portal (Heilsuvera) using electronic ID. Heilsuvera has proven to be very useful in the effort to contain COVID-19," says Arnaldur Skúli Baldursson, Project Manager for Heilsuvera at Origo.

Iceland's success in the fight against COVID-19 has attracted a great deal of attention from other countries. Representatives from the Icelandic health authorities have described the solutions used by Iceland in combating the virus at international conferences and events. Iceland is considered to be at the forefront of the development of software solutions and, as proof of this, Origo specialists are now assisting WHO with the further development of vaccination certificates.

Origo assisting WHO in developing a vaccination certificate

Origo is assisting WHO in developing a digital vaccination certificate

Health care workers are one of the pillars of society. Their work touch all our lives in various ways. Health care workers operate under great amounts of pressure every day and face high performance standards. We demand high quality and precision as well as that people work fast and with great care. 

The demands are high, and one could say they are almost impossible to live up to, yet we see health care workers face the challenge every day. So it is no surprise that they are now, in the pandemic, often compared to superheroes. 

The Implementation of Smásaga Pushed Forward in the Pandemic

With increased knowledge of technology many digital solutions have been implemented to help health care workers meet those standards. When COVID-19 hit Iceland our need for digital solutions in health care and quick implementation and development increased. 

In-home nursing staff was a part of this group. They are a part of our health care workers whose patients are among the most vulnerable individuals in our society. It was important to keep the operation ongoing but limit contact between employees. Before COVID-19 hit, all the employees would gather at a local workstation for in-home nursing early in the morning, and receive printed instructions for the day, before going to the homes they serviced. At the end of the day the information was entered into a computer and saved into patients’ medical records. This method had to be changed to limit contact due to new rules implemented because of COVID-19. In-home nursing in the capital region took the first step towards digital solutions to fit the new rules.

Origo has been in the frontline of developing health care solutions and developed the Smásaga app for health care workers. That development was in the final stages when COVID-19 hit. The in-home nursing in the capital region asked us to implement the app quicker than originally scheduled so patients’ safety could be guaranteed.

You Can Safely Send Images to Medical Records

By using Smásaga, in-home nursing workers can document information about clients in real time through a smart phone, and transferred the information straight into Saga, the individual’s medical records.  Therefore, the in-home nursing staff could avoid gathering at a joint workstation in the mornings and go straight to assist their clients. This was essential due to the COVID-19 restrictions.

Smásaga proved very useful from the beginning. The former workflow included printing out sensitive information about patients’ medical records and keeping that information in paper form. Measurements and other information from visitations were then added to the paper files and not added to the digital medical records until the end of the workday. This method increased the risk of wrongly filing information. By using Smásaga it is easier to change the in-home nursing plan. If any changes happen they are immediately added to the medical record through Smásaga.

Í Smásögu er hægt að taka myndir, t.d. af sári skjólstæðings og sú mynd sendist þá strax í sjúkraskrá þess. Myndin vistast ekki í appið eða snjallsímann. Áður var það á þann hátt að ef starfsmaður þurfti að taka mynd gat hún vistast í síma starfsmanns og þaðan gat hún óvart farið í skýjageymslu hjá erlendum aðilum eða endað í fjölskyldualbúmi.

Optimization and Increased Quality of Care

Smásaga has greatly increased quality and safety. Smásaga has, in addition, optimized the in-home nursing system. Since computers and other electronics are no longer needed for record keeping, costs of care can be lowered. It also lessens peoples driving time, which has a positive impact on the environment. 

Continuing development of health care services is very important. The benefits of rethinking how we service patients and workflow can increase the quality and safety immensely. 

Smásaga is being developed for use for other health care workers, for example workers in in-house patient care and for the measuring and documenting of medicine distribution. 

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Health care workers are one of the pillars of society. Their work touch all our lives in various ways. Health care workers operate under great amounts of pressure every day and face high performance standards. We demand high quality and precision as well as that people work fast and with great care.

Smásaga – App for In-Home Nursing

Ransomware attacks – why they’re on the rise and how Origo can protect you

 The first six months of 2020 saw a 151% increase in DDoS attacks – distributed denial of service cyber attacks that cripple an organisation’s IT systems. The reason for this startling rise is quite simple: COVID-19. As organisations and their staff adapted to working from home, internet traffic soared by more than 50%. And where internet traffic grows, cybercrime grows too.

DDoS attacks involve huge volumes of traffic being directed to the victim’s website, bringing it down and causing costly business interruption. The perpetrators then demand a ransom to stop the attack. Hackers generate these massive volumes of traffic by networking servers that they have infiltrated; for example, through spam emails. The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has also given hackers a broad new choice of entry points, often poorly secured.

The question businesses are asking is this: with internet traffic and the IoT set to continue growing for the foreseeable future, and hackers becoming increasingly sophisticated and determined, what can they do to protect themselves against this burgeoning threat?

DDoS attacks range from small attacks of 5 gigabytes per second (that’s 5Gbps of data flooding the victim’s systems) up to massive attacks in the terabyte scale. Earlier this year, an Amazon Web Service client sustained an attack of 2.3Tbps. Compare this to the first headline DDoS attack which brought six US banks to a halt in 2012. The scale of that attack was 60Gbps – the threat has escalated.

But it’s at both ends of the scale that the rise in DDoS has been most pronounced. In other words, it’s not just big businesses that are at risk. In fact, more attacks are initiated at the 5Gbps level than anywhere else.

The impact is fourfold. First you have to find the resources to recover and secure compromised data. Then you have to communicate with regulators and customers to inform them that you have been breached. You may have to pay regulatory penalties. And you will want to invest in more robust security around your newly restored systems. The cost for some organisations can run to millions. The reputational damage can be even more severe.

How to protect your business against DDoS attacks

When your business is targeted by a DDoS attack, it is hit by a tidal wave of data. In order to protect your website from becoming swamped, you need to break up that wave and deflect it away.

The solution is, in effect, a reversal of the tactic the hackers use to build up the wave in the first place: the creation of a network through which all traffic to your website is routed. When an abnormal build-up of data comes your way, the network dissipates and absorbs the impact.

The leading specialist in counteracting DDoS attacks is Cloudflare, a San Francisco based company with a 42Tb network of over 13 million internet properties in 150 countries. Every website under Cloudflare’s protection is routed through this global network, giving optimal page load times and robust resilience against DDoS attacks. To give an idea of the scale of that protection, Cloudflare’s global network is 15 times bigger than the largest DDoS attack recorded to date.

This year Origo and Cloudflare became partners, enabling us to increase the level of protection we can offer to Origo customers. For most businesses, the cost of building an infrastructure that can handle a large-scale DDoS attack is prohibitive, but with the Cloudflare model, businesses of any size can enjoy the best protection there is, by being part of the global network. Should your business come under attack, you can block it without any discernible impact on your ability to trade and serve your customers. That’s particularly important, given the increase in attacks at the smaller end of the scale. 

As well as mitigating DDoS and other attacks, Cloudflare provides protection against spam, saving medium-sized businesses thousands of hours a year in time taken up by employees having to sift through unwanted emails. With this saving of ongoing costs coupled with the protection against the potential cost of a ransomware attack, businesses of all sizes can afford to operate with the confidence that they are protected from the biggest cyber threat of all.

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The first six months of 2020 saw a 151% increase in DDoS attacks – distributed denial of service cyber attacks that cripple an organisation’s IT systems. The reason for this startling rise is quite simple: COVID-19. As organisations and their staff adapted to working from home, internet traffic soared by more than 50%. And where internet traffic grows, cybercrime grows too.

Ransomware attacks – how Origo can protect you

DDoS Ransomware Attacks – how can Origo protect you?

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Origo has worked closely with the Directorate of Health in Iceland to conduct testing both at the Icelandic border and other health care facilities. The border screening system showed its strength when it was implemented at the Health Clinics in the Greater Reykjavik area for general testing. Before the system was implemented, the Health Clinics conducted around 200-400 COVID-19 tests per day, but with the introduction of the border system, up to 4000 tests could be conducted daily, a big increase.

The next big project for the Icelandic health care system

The next big project the Icelandic health care system faces is fast approaching: the COVID-19 vaccinations. In recent weeks, Origo has been working on developing a computer system which will handle the management of all COVID-19 vaccinations in Iceland. The system is being developed in close collaboration with the Directorate of Health, the Health Clinics in Greater Reykjavik and other health institutions in Iceland. The system is based on a previous software developed for the COVID-19 testing at the Icelandic border which is currently used for almost all COVID-19 testing in Iceland.

A powerful system that manages priority groups and automatically calls people in for vaccination via SMS messages

In developing the new system many factors had to be considered which keeps track of priority groups, among other features. The system also had to be developed in such a way that it will able to send automatic messages to call people in for vaccination as soon as vaccines arrive in Iceland. 
This will be accomplished by sending a bar code to an individual's personal health care page (Heilsuvera) and an SMS message inviting them to come in for vaccination. It will also be possible to call people in to different vaccination centers based on which health clinic they are registered with. The system will also call people in for their second vaccination in a similar way through Heilsuvera. Thus, Heilsuvera will continue to serve as the central communication platform for individuals' health services.

The system will enter all vaccinations in the vaccination database of the Chief Epidemiologist so that it will be possible to keep a central record of all those who receive vaccinations.

Work has already begun, since 15 December, on registering the priority groups defined by the Chief Epidemiologist and the Minister of Health into the system. 

Origo's Healthcare Solutions division is also working with the Directorate of Health on compiling a list of all individuals who are at increased risk of COVID-19 based on diagnoses registered in the Saga medical records system.

Iceland is in a unique position due to the electronic infrastructure that has been developed for the health care system in recent years, including the Saga medical records system, Heilsuvera and the Hekla health network, which is managed and developed by Origo. 
This infrastructure will now enable us to vaccinate against COVID-19 in a targeted and organised manner.

COVID-19 pandemic IT system

Our next big project: Vaccinations against COVID-19

We’ve been familiar with the concept of drones fro some years now. Their use in the military, for everything from bomb disposal to surgical strikes, is no longer the stuff of sci-fi, their recreational use (and misuse) by consumers and criminals makes the news headlines with increasing frequency and we’re all still waiting for our first drone delivery from Amazon.

But while we wait, other businesses have already begun to integrate drones into their workforce. Here we’ve collected some of the applications already in use to show how drones can improve the way we work and trigger new ideas for you, our readers, as to how you might be able to employ them in your business.

A few years ago Easyjet started using drones to carry out aircraft inspections and now they are used for similar purposes in a range of industries. Inspecting an aircraft is not easy for a human. You have to get up to the height of the fuselage, then work your way around methodically, checking for minute signs of damage. A drone, by contrast, can access every part of the plane quickly and safely, gather high-definition imagery and be programmed to methodically cover every inch of the plane, so nothing is overlooked.

This highlights three key benefits of drones: their speed and agility, their ability to carry sensors and their tireless thoroughness.

These benefits are also being realised in industries such as construction, petrochemicals and shipping, where inspections need to be carried out at height, or underwater or using sensors to detect gas leaks or heat loss.

The ability of drones to take great aerial photographs has opened up a huge advertising opportunity for businesses of all sizes. Once upon a time, if you wanted to run an ad featuring swooping aerial footage, you had to hire a helicopter, or perhaps some CGI, all at very high cost. Consequently it was the preserve of very big brands and their spectacular cinema ads.

But a drone mounted with a high quality camera makes the capture of exciting aerial shots affordable across the board, and more and more businesses are being able to utilise this in their creative marketing output on digital channels. The only question is ‘how creative are you?’

Farming involves a lot of repetitive, methodical tasks. Ploughing fields, spraying crops, harvesting, inspecting fences, surveying buildings and livestock. Farm machinery has become increasingly programmable, to the point where humans are being taken out of the equation altogether and replaced with autonomous drone tractors that can manage the ploughing and harvesting all by themselves. 

Meanwhile, the cowboy or shepherd, who used to spend all day riding the ranch or roaming the hills, can now carry out much of the animal husbandry with a drone. The benefits are that it can cover the ground in a fraction of the time and send back images from an aerial or low level perspective, thus spotting things that might go undetected at ground level.

Delivery drones are ready to go; the only constraints are the air traffic regulations that require drones to remain in the line of sight of the pilot at all times. In countries where this stipulation doesn’t apply, delivery drones are already at work, ferrying medical supplies between hospitals and delivering goods across rivers.

But the logistical capability of drones doesn’t stop at deliveries. Drones are being used in warehouse management, fitted with scanners for automatic inventory control and helping to speed up the pick and pack process. They are used for transporting items within site too, freeing up human labour and adding a level of agility to the already established robot production line workforce.

In many respects, drones are answering the question of what humans could achieve if they had wings. But it’s not just the airborne capability of drones that provides opportunities for businesses. They can operate underwater, on the water and overland too. In some cases they have even negotiated tunnels.

Here we have covered just a handful of examples, chosen to illustrate the essential attributes of drones: speed and agility, safety, affordability, sensor carrying, weight carrying, tirelessness and thoroughness. If any of these are attributes you look for in new recruits, perhaps you should consider a drone. It could take to to whole new heights.

Drones: time to add them to your workforce?

Imagine being in charge of a commercial airline when the jet engine was invented. Would you concern yourself with how this new, superpowered contraption works? Or would you focus on all the possibilities that it offers for your airline?

Business leaders struggling with the mind-blowing concept of quantum computing would be well advised to take the same approach. Never mind how this complicated stuff works, just think what it could do for your business!

OK, it helps to have some understanding of what quantum computing is. Let’s begin with the word ‘quantum’: a word given to the world by the Romans but adopted by physicists to refer to the smallest quantity of any physical entity. So we’re dealing with very small particles here and their behaviour in the Universe, but that’s as much science as you need to know.

Traditional computing, as you know, uses binary units called bits; 1s and 0s that work in an either/or format of rapid trial and error. Quantum computing uses qubits, which can be both 1s and 0s, so they can do two calculations at once. Double the speed, right? Wrong. Qubits give an exponential gain, so 10 qubits can do 1,000 calculations, 30 qubits can do a billion and… 

You get the point. Quantum computers are phenomenally fast. However, they are also prone to getting things wrong. I know – seems strange for a computer to get things wrong but they do. Sometimes. So the application of quantum computing works best as a hybrid with traditional computing, where the speed of one is underpinned by the accuracy of the other.

So how can this ultrafast computer power improve the way your business works? In essence, any calculation that requires vast amounts of trial and error is a candidate for quantum computing. It might help to look at some of the applications that are already in development. We can illustrate this by looking at some examples of where quantum computing solutions are being developed right now.

The future development of many chemistry-based technologies relies on the ability to simulate the makeup and behaviour of molecules. This would replace the traditional trial and error experiments with much greater speed and precision, but it requires vast computing power. Quantum computers could provide the solution. Applications being developed include the engineering of proteins for medical purposes, a more energy-efficient method of making fertilisers and the development of battery cells for electric cars.

The speed and efficiency with which traffic moves is increasingly important as we move to cut emissions, save fuel and prepare the way for autonomous vehicles. Traffic management requires a powerful combination of pattern recognition and predictive analysis in order to plot optimum routes that can be altered in real-time as unpredictable traffic conditions evolve. Specific applications include plotting delivery routes for logistics and managing large crowds at events.

Traffic management is one example of AI and machine learning in action. AI is basically the ability of a computer to learn from experience. Again, it’s trial and error at a fast pace. Experience will be programmed in by a human initially and then it will start to grow autonomously from the feedback. Traditional computers have already shown remarkable capabilities to learn and ‘think’ for themselves, but quantum computers could carry out the trial and error sequences required to gain knowledge so much faster.

If you think traffic is unpredictable, the weather is even more so. And that’s because the computers currently being used to analyse patterns and build models aren’t yet powerful enough to handle all the variables involved. Quantum computing could change all that, enabling us to not only make more accurate weather forecasts but also to gain a better understanding of climate change and its influencing factors.

This is an interesting one because the constant battle between good and evil in cyberspace will tip dramatically towards the bad guys thanks to quantum computing, unless a new approach to security is found. Why? Because hackers employ trial and error methodologies to crack security codes and anything that speeds up the process gives them a better chance of getting in before their attempt is discovered. So the race is on to find a way to use quantum computing to build new security structures that present a whole new challenge to hackers and keep the good guys on top.

Quantum computing is still in its infancy. The first developed applications are not expected for another 10 years and there are still many questions to be answered as to how or if it will replace the role of traditional computing today.

It pays to be ready, though. Like the airline owner who thought the propellor plane was all he needed, you don’t want to be left on the ground when all around you are taking off.

Quantum computing: never mind the mechanics, what can it do?

Quantum computing is still in its infancy. The first developed applications are not expected for another 10 years and there are still many questions to be answered as to how or if it will replace the role of traditional computing today. This articles discusses some of the ways in which quantum computing can benefit businesses and in what industries especially.

Even before Covid, remote working had become a regular part of life for the majority of the world’s workforce. Now, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t have frequent online meetings as part of their working week.

2020 has been the year of the video meeting and, as with so many cultural innovations, the practice has been somewhat anarchic. Meetings go on for hours, children appear in the background demanding lunch, dogs and cats wander across the screen, participants take their device to the toilet with the camera still on, or stand up to fetch a drink, forgetting that they haven’t yet put on their trousers!

This was funny for a while but the novelty has worn off. Workers complain of ‘Zoom fatigue’ and spending their days in back-to-back meetings. If companies are to rely on remote meetings as a long-term strategy, it’s important to apply some controls. Here are five essential principles to ensure your remote meetings don’t become a joke.

Does your meeting actually warrant a video call? The working world managed perfectly well without video calls for decades – we just made calls.

The telephone is actually a much less distracting, more immediate medium than video conferencing, so if you need to speak to a client or colleague about a matter that really doesn’t require visual support, put the laptop to one side and pick up the phone.

If you do need to hold video meetings, research all the different video conferencing platforms to find one that best suits your needs. And make sure your equipment is up to the job. That applies to your employees too. If you expect them to communicate in this way, give them the equipment and connectivity to do so as effortlessly as possible. Poor bandwidth and slow processors could drive your talent away. 

The pandemic has thrown the spotlight on mental health and the need for managers to check in with their individual team members on a personal level. This is good, but it shouldn’t be mixed with a meeting about sales strategy.

Work meetings are necessary for various purposes: brainstorming, training, appraisals, wellbeing… keeping them separate will help to keep them focused and succinct.

Apply an appropriate code of conduct for each type of meeting. For example, you could dress informally and have a cat in the background if you want to chat to an employee about their mental health, whereas more formal work wear and a plain background would be better for their annual appraisal. The same applies to training, team meetings and sales calls. Apply an appropriate level of professionalism and ask all your employees to follow the same code.

A good meeting is a fast meeting. Maintain momentum by structuring your meeting with an agenda and, ideally, a time limit.

Decide in advance who should speak about what and for how long and share the programme ahead of the meeting. There have been some really impressive ‘events’ held on video conferencing platforms in 2020, where there has been a well planned schedule, a variety of interesting speakers and a strict time limit. When structured efficiently, this is a medium that can deliver a lot of valuable content all around the world in a succinct and impactful way.

This relates to point 2 and the code of conduct. As a general rule for all types of remote meeting, all attendees should be expected to arrive on time, as they would in the physical world, dressed appropriately, well prepared and without distractions or disruptions in the background.

Different companies will have different approaches to these standards, but whatever your standards were when everybody worked under one roof, apply them to video meetings too and communicate your expectations and the reasons behind them.

Your people will be much more energised and inspired by a meeting that runs efficiently and ends on time than they will by one that drifts on without direction.

When the meeting is over, cement the value of the time you’ve spent together by writing up a summary with action points and circulating it to all attendees. Concluding your meetings with a summary shows that you’ve been listening, gives recognition for everybody’s attendance and reinforces the sense of purpose and progress that every meeting should have, whatever its purpose may be.

These principles have been standard business meeting practice for years, but they have become widely neglected, especially amid the anarchy of the remote working boom. It’s time to get organised again. We have the technology – don’t let it run away with you.

5 ways to enhance the remote meeting experience

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, is nothing if not realistic. In his endeavour to keep the Facebook family forever striving to break new ground and avoid resting on their laurels, he is quoted as having said, “If we don’t create the thing that kills Facebook, someone else will.”

Every business should take heed, especially the big ones. Nothing lasts forever, no matter how huge and successful. Just ask Nokia.

It’s very tempting to leave a successful business alone, not to try and fix what isn’t broken. But ever since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, that approach has left behind big casualties that failed to recognise or respond to the harbingers of disruption.

The game changer today is the Internet of Things (IoT) and its powerful alliance with artificial intelligence (AI). Data collection and data analysis, all taking place without the need for human intervention. Is your business ready for this?

Here are three questions business leaders should be asking in order to preserve the longevity of their brands.

Digital technology has changed customer expectations in many industries, notably retail, healthcare and banking. In each case this has brought about something of an existential crisis. Why do people need shops any more?

It’s important to examine the services you provide and ask yourself, “Do people still need this? And if they don’t, what is it they do need?”

Look beyond what you provide to the end benefit that it enables. A bank, for example, will provide mortgages and car loans but are these what their customers really want? No. What they really want is homes and cars. In fact, you could go further. While some customers want cars for the aesthetics and status that they bring, others just want to get from A to B.

So how can your company satisfy that need.

Q2: How could digital tech improve what we do now?

Retail has pioneered the use of the IoT and AI to enhance the customer experience and meet the increasing expectations of consumers. With Amazon blazing the trail, retailers have been quick to recognise the value of customer behavioural data and use it to target customers with surgical precision.

Before you think about using the IoT to collect new data, take a look at the data you already hold. Most businesses are sitting on a goldmine of customer data that they’re not exploiting. How can you apply AI to the data you hold – within the boundaries of data privacy, of course – to improve your targeting and enhance your customer experience?

What the IoT adds to this is fresh data in real-time, enabling you to respond in a very agile manner by adjusting your offering to quickly meeting changes in demand. This technology is proving very beneficial in logistics, where companies can stay very competitive by monitoring a range of factors such as traffic, import/export tariffs and driver data to find the best routes and prices for their customers at any given time.

Q3: How could we embrace digital to move into new markets?

Historically, businesses have tended to stick to their niche because the cost of moving into new, uncharted sectors was prohibitive. But the first wave of digital disruption showed us a different way, when small startups tore up the market by bringing ideas quickly and cost-effectively to market.

This has changed the way brands should define themselves. Look at what you’re good at, rather than what you do. A healthcare provider, for example, might see itself as an institution that tends to the sick. But another way of looking at it would be as a brand that’s really good at customer service, has the trust of its users, employs proven experts, is recognised as caring etc etc. Now, how can these strengths be applied to expand your offering? And how can digital technology enable that?

You could start providing health insurance, for example. With a trusted brand and established expertise, it wouldn’t be hard to sell. And by using IoT and AI to streamline the healthcare service you provide, and thus the cost, one part of the business will benefit the other.

While your business is thriving is the time to start thinking about its destruction. Why? Because that’s when you have the resources, the confidence and the brand equity to explore new ideas. Define what customers need most, identify how your core strengths as a business can meet those needs and make data your ally in delivering a service that is truly revolutionary.

Intelligent disruption: using IT to break and improve

Whether or not you subscribe to the dystopian vision of machines replacing the entire human workforce, and however far away you think that might be, employers can befriend artificial intelligence right now to enhance their human workforce.

The traditional CV, showing educational qualifications and work experience, is becoming an anachronism. “The big gap,” says Nick Boothroyd, co-founder of UK-based employability startup Naturally Talented Me, “is the personality, behaviour and attitude behind the written word. And that is precisely what many employers are seeking: that spark of individuality that will light up their brand and deliver amazing results time after time.”

“We can train many of the ‘skills’ that we need in our non-executive roles but we can’t significantly change natural talent and we certainly can’t change personality in any reliable way. So employers need a new way of assessing candidates that identifies those personality, behaviour and attitude skills, such as empathy, attention to detail, teamwork, reliability and independence.”

“These are the talents that will wow customers, engage work colleagues and boost brands through positive interactions.”

Hobbies and interests are often omitted from CVs, or at best represent an afterthought, not considered particularly relevant to employability. But this is the section Boothroyd, who has held senior recruitment roles at Rank Group, Merlin Entertainments, Prezzo and The Body Shop, looks at first. Why? “Because it is, in part, what people choose to do voluntarily that gives an insight into their true motivations and passions, and hence their natural talents.”

Naturally Talented Me uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help job seekers identify their own natural talents from their hobbies and interests, and then helps employers to find people with the talents they need. The AI is learning all the time from the inputs of new candidates and the requests of new employers, and thus the process of matching candidates with job roles is becoming more and more accurate.

Saving the time and cost of pre-screening

Recruitment is a major cost for employers. Paying an agency to pre-screen candidates can cost thousands of dollars per placement, or if you do it in-house, the cost in hours can be even more.

Some jobs attract hundreds of applicants, many of who will be wildly unsuitable. For companies that fill hundreds of roles every year, this can amount to millions being spent with very little to show for it.

AI can save that cost. Recruiters can train the algorithm not only to recognise the required qualifications, but also to check for natural talents and even conduct interviews. Robot Vera is a Russian AI recruitment solution, which can be programmed to call candidates and interview them. She has proven effective at recruiting some highly qualified personnel, including software engineers and even doctors.

Concerns over how job seekers would respond to being interviewed by a robot have proven unfounded. Nobody has put the phone down on Robot Vera; in fact, for many candidates the use of AI gives a positive impression of the employer, as forward-looking and innovative.

By the time you get down to your shortlist of most suitable applicants, you might want to test them with some hypothetical scenarios, to see how they respond. You can do this by talking them through the scenario and asking them to describe what they would do – not very realistic or informative; you can take them on for a trial to see them in action – time consuming and inefficient; or you can create virtual scenarios using virtual reality (VR), instantly placing them in a very realistic predicament where you can observe their reaction there and then.

Lloyds Banking Group was one of the pioneers of VR in its recruitment process back in 2017. VR allows employers to present candidates with computer-generated environments and challenges that could never have been recreated in a traditional interview. The benefit works both ways: the employer gets a clear idea of the talent they’re taking on and the candidate gets a better idea of job their walking into.

Recruitment is an area of business that can benefit enormously from AI. It can take care of the high-volume, low return, mundane processes like pre-screening, operating at many times the speed of a human and working 24/7, 365 days a year at no extra cost. It can also help in the highly specialised processes of talent identification and candidate interviews.

As the world of work adapts to the need for new talents to work alongside AI, AI holds the key to finding the human talent employers need.

How AI can help you recruit your future workforce ?

Blockchain has been around long enough now for most businesses to have started considering whether they should be using it and how.

As with all new technology, when something is spoken about as much as blockchain is, it creates a feeling of paranoia among those who aren’t yet at the party. It’s important, however, to remember that this technology is a tool for getting a certain type of job done – and if you don’t need that type of job done, you don’t need the tool.

In this article, we give an overview of the types of jobs that blockchain is being used for. The idea is that you draw your own conclusions about whether or not it could be useful for you. First, though, let’s try to clarify what blockchain is and how it works.

Blockchain explained – the short version

Blockchain is a virtually tamper-proof method of storing and sharing information. It is, as the name suggests, a chain of digital blocks, each one containing a piece of data, a unique code and a copy of the unique code belonging to the block before it in the chain. If somebody tampers with the data in one block, it changes its unique code, which creates a disagreement with the code stored in the next block and raises a red flag.

With the traditional method for keeping records in a central location, such as a Government office, it might be the responsibility of one or two people to pick up any red flags and investigate. With blockchain, validation is decentralised, spread around an online peer-to-peer network of devices (known as nodes), which all get notified of any changes in the chain and must verify it before it can pass.

New blocks are created by ‘miners’, who are paid for each new block they create. To create a new block (mining), a miner is presented with a mathematical problem (hash) that is hugely complex to solve, yet very simple to validate. Solving the problem requires vast computing power, which makes it effectively unprofitable to try to hack the system. The solution to the hash becomes the unique code (has output) for the new block. Nodes quickly validate the hash output and give consensus, enabling the new block to join the chain.

Because of blockchain’s decentralised structure, there can be no single point of failure, nor can a blockchain be censored. It is a neutral, borderless, secure technology that mitigates against human error and cuts through a lot of red tape, thus speeding up processes and reducing costs.

Some of the more obvious applications of blockchain include the transfer of cryptocurrency across borders, streamlining record-keeping, protecting intellectual property and securing personal information. It’s easy to see how applications like this benefit from the added security, efficiency and accessibility of being decentralised and automated. They are proving particularly useful in sectors like Financial Services, Logistics, Media, Medical and Government, which have all seen innovative adoption of the technology.

Governments, for example, can combat vote rigging and empower higher turn-outs at elections by storing voter details on a blockchain and using it to enable secure voting from personal devices. Logistics companies can streamline their supply chain by placing all transit records on a blockchain to identify patterns and avoid duplications and anomalies in the system.

Protecting businesses with Smart contracts

Putting contracts on a blockchain turns them from a piece of paper into a set of rules that are enforced in real-time. Rather than having to dig out the piece of paper and hire a lawyer when agreements break down, smart contracts keep all parties accountable and compliant all the time, avoiding contractual disputes and saving time and money.

Some of the more obvious applications of blockchain include the transfer of cryptocurrency across borders, streamlining record-keeping, protecting intellectual property and securing personal information. It’s easy to see how applications like this benefit from the added security, efficiency and accessibility of being decentralised and automated.

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