Pandemic Meets Opportunities: The Bright Side of COVID19

The world-ravaging pandemic known as COVID19 has taken and still taking its toll on the various sectors of the world. No one would have thought the entire world can be put on lockdown due to an organism that is barely up to 300 nm in size. One thing that has ensured the continued survival and evolution of man through time, however, is his ability to adapt to situations.

While many things were shut down in order to prevent the virus from further extending its tentacles, many things were invented and are still being invented. While the effects of the pandemic can be felt by everyone, people feel it differently; with some being negatively impacted and others positively impacted. Someone mentioned besides me about a woman who confessed in public transport that she has never been more economically buoyant in her life than during the lockdown. Her business simply moved quite well during the lockdown period, it seemed.

Apart from the woman in the public bus, the pandemic and the lockdown that followed it created several opportunities for innovators to capitalize on. While the scientific world was busy looking for solutions to the pandemic, many investors and entrepreneurs were busy taking advantage of the situation. Below is a compilation of some of the various opportunities that the COVID19 pandemic has created and those that seized the opportunity to make varying forms of gains.


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Off-class Learning

The onset of the lock-down due to the covid19 pandemic initially had stakeholders in the education sector feeling it will all end in no time. Even though there were pointers to off-school learning before the pandemic, the protracted lock-down made many institutions of learning to evolve various means of teaching their students without having to gather them all in one place.

The transition was quite easy for most institutions in the developed countries unlike their counterparts in the developing ones. Nevertheless, stakeholders in institutions of the developing countries improvised where necessary and as such, platforms like zoom and Google classroom came into more light during this period.

New applications targetting off-class learning also emerged to compete with already known apps while some evolved to be niche-specific. Prominence among them are the online learning platforms that focus on helping students with their homework and assignments. A good example is the uLesson app by the famous Nigerian entrepreneur, Sim Shigaya

Work from Home

With businesses locked down and revenue tap fast slowing down, many employers of labour had little or no option but to take the necessary actions in order to stay afloat. While some had to find a way for their employees to get various tasks done from their comfort zones, many resorted to laying off staff to tighten their revenue taps, yet, many combined the two strategies.

Several instant messaging/social media applications that make it easy to delegate and collaborate became more popular as a result. Applications like slack, Flock, Discord, Github and many more all came in handy.

Emergence of Small Businesses

With the loss of jobs and continued scarcity of paid employment due to the pandemic, the attention of many shifted into creating small businesses in order to eke out a living. People that have never ventured into a business had to try and several applications came into prominence targeting the management of small and medium scale businesses. On this list include Gusto, Shopventory, and several other apps.

Telemedicine and E-medicine

At the height of the pandemic and the ensued lock-down, hospitals became a hub filled with activities. Health workers were overwhelmed with work and every ill-health became suspicious. Many sicknesses that are of no emergency were relegated to the low end of the pyramid and many illnesses that otherwise would have taken people to the hospital were managed at home.

Telemedicine and E-medicine became more prominent and many apps emerged or become more popular trying to take the opportunity created by the situation. Applications on this list include MDlive, Lemonaid, Doctor on Demand, and so on.

Decentralized Finance

No doubt that the pandemic took its best toll on finance at individual, corporate and even government levels. Banks were limited in their activities and many financial settlements encountered major doldrum. Many people went broke even though they were rich on paper. Many banks closed completely while the few ones limited the time and the number of customers they can attend to.

Even at that, customers were limited to a certain threshold of financial transactions when it comes to dealing with cash. In all these, decentralized financial systems started becoming popular. Many people dabbled into cryptocurrencies and Defi systems such as yield farming, crypto-lending, staking, etc.

In Nigeria, it was during this period that a platform like Binance became more popular as people got to know about Defis and crypto trading. Nigeria became the third largest trader of Bitcoin during this period as well and Binance was at the center of it all.

Of course, the opportunities created by the pandemic are too numerous to treat everything at a go. The list can go on and on.

Thank you for reading my little piece.


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