Corona and Beyond -
It is Oct 2021 and the disease known as Covid or Corona has created havoc over the past 18 months. It has killed millions and rendered many jobless. It has made many people go online and start buying things online on places such as Amazon or Flipkart. Various money transactions have started happening online via things like Google Pay, UPI (Government of India’s Unified payment interface). Companies that could go digital have gone and picked up market share from companies that are mostly offline.
Last year when Corona started and most of us were not allowed to go to office, most of India started working from home (folks that work on computer systems). I landed up joining a new generation startup called Sibros Technologies out of San Jose California. It is a new age company working in connected automotive eco-system i.e. it is able to facilitate data movement from sensors in the vehicle to the cloud server and it is able to refresh or OTA - Over the Air update the sensors in the vehicle. The vehicle can be bike, car, truck, bus, tractor etc across IC, EV or H2 products.
My job is to get business for Sibros and help evangelise this to the Automotive ecosystem. Over the past year, we have made much progress and have spoken with hundreds of automotive OEM or system suppliers across Asia, EU and USA. This year we have started rolling out our solutions.
So kids have not gone to school for over 1.5 years, my son finished his 10th exams without giving his boards (ICSE) and the board system came up with some logic to give them final marks based on various criteria. The daughter has not met her classmates. Wifey is working from home and keeps buying selling shares on the stock market. Incidentally the stock market after initially collapsing has now almost 2X in value and volume and has hit all time high. All those who were vested in the market have made a killing in the share market. Since most folks in Bombay/ Mumbai invest in the share market, this has resulted in huge financial windfalls for the city residents.
So in a nut shell, travel ended, most of India was in curfew for many months, people lost jobs but those in digital industries gained jobs and huge salaries. Online became a way of life and various online collaboration tools got generated. Kids learned to learn over tools like Zoom/Google Meet etc. Small kids got lost as it is almost impossible for them to learn via mobile phones or laptops. Older people have gone through high depression as they cannot leave homes (due to covid infection). Every family lost some loved one to the covid virus (specially in India).
As for me, it has been a different time, I joined a company where I have not met many of my colleagues, started doing business across all continents, learned various new technologies and rebooted my life for the next set of adventures.
So where do we go from here, my take it things will go back to normal, I am right now on a domestic Indian flight (after almost 18 months) and it is a full flight, people are travelling wearing masks and people keep washing their hands with sanitisers to avoid contact and corona. I will restart my travel as and when customers are willing to meet and countries allow Indian nationals to travel to their areas. I have kept up with my Yoga and started walking, not lost much weight but I believe my fitness levels must have surely improved. The son went to the USA for the summer of 2021 and played various tennis tournaments, he loved California and wants to study and settle down in the States and as usual the daughter will follow the elder brother and she too shall move to USA.
So till then from a new world order rattled by Covid over the past year or so, I sign off and will meet soon.
Sayonara,
Shiva
