How Virtual Do We Want Our Future to Be?
This article appears in the Zoom Newsletter - September 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the lives and behavior of people across the globe. We have had to adapt to different ways of shopping, learning, socializing, working, celebrating, doing business, and much more.
This report, prepared and commissioned by Zoom, based on survey data and findings provided by Qualtrics Research, focuses on the impact that video communications have had on our day-to-day lives. We explored a variety of use cases for video communications and how they were used and perceived in ten different countries that spanned the globe. The survey results acknowledge the extraordinary challenges the world has faced and how video communications have helped maintain some semblance of normalcy and continuity of life’s important activities.
Although there’s been a high level of appreciation for this alternative to “in-person” living, over one year into this shift, we’re now wondering - what’s next? How much of this virtual life will we want to keep beyond the pandemic?
This report seeks to capture the current sentiment toward video communications from the perspective of everyday folks - employees, parents, students, teachers, consumers, and everyone in between.
Young People, Work & Skills.
In a world of social disparities, where education has been severely disrupted by COVID-19 and the spectre of climate change looms, young people could be forgiven for being pessimistic about their futures. However, our new poll shows high levels of optimism about the chance of having the career they want. Young people know the challenges, but are confident they can overcome them.
Conducted through UNICEF’s U-report platform – a messaging tool that empowers young people to speak out on issues that matter to them – the poll found that 63% of the almost 11,000 youth across 136 countries who took the survey believe it is likely they will have the career they want in the future.
So why are many young people so positive? And what would the almost two in five young people who are pessimistic like to see to help them achieve their potential? On World Youth Skills Day, we spoke with a small group of youth to help understand what is driving this optimism and what challenges they are worried about. Here is what we learned from them.
Building resilience and adaptability through the pandemic
I wish life was a game which came with instructions, but unfortunately we don’t have that roadmap that can tell us exactly what we should do to get to where we want to be.
—Praise Majwafi, 22, South Africa
A topic we talked about was the impact of the pandemic on young people. Participants agreed that because the past year has been so challenging, it has taught them to manage through uncertainty.
“The pandemic has given us a crash-course in resilience and adaptability,” said 23-year old Sana Farooq, the co-founder of a social enterprise in Pakistan called The Red Code.
“Being flexible and adaptable is something we’ve all had to get used to,” added 22-year old Praise Majwafi, a social entrepreneur from South Africa.
Moving towards the longest day - 21st June 2021
As the Prime Minister announced the roadmap towards relaxing the restrictions of lockdown, it felt as though there were a universal cautious sense of relief about what could, should or would happen next. Airlines reported a spike in bookings, hotel rooms begin to sell out and festival organisers website’s crashed.
Prime Minister's address to the nation as Third Lockdown for England is announced
The Transcript of the Prime Minister’s Speech made this evening at 8pm is as follows:-
Since the pandemic began last year, the whole United Kingdom has been engaged in a great national effort to fight Covid.
And there is no doubt that in fighting the old variant of the virus, our collective efforts were working and would have continued to work.
But we now have a new variant of the virus. It has been both frustrating and alarming to see the speed with which the new variant is spreading.
Our scientists have confirmed this new variant is between 50 and 70 per cent more transmissible – that means you are much, much more likely to catch the virus and to pass it on.
As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic.
In England alone, the number of Covid patients in hospitals has increased by nearly a third in the last week, to almost 27,000.
That number is 40 per cent higher than the first peak in April.