SEVENTEEN years ago BBC aired a report headlined “Fears spread over deadly virus.”

An article under the same headline was published in its website. The article read, “officials are urging people not to panic as health authorities around the world are struggling to contain a lethal form of pneumonia as air travelers spread it across the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a rare emergency warning over the weekend, declaring the sickness ‘a worldwide health threat,’ and saying that cases had been reported on three continents, with more suspected in other parts of the world.”

The statement sounds very familiar.

In 2003, the Internet was a toddler; the smartphone still a dream.

There was no Messenger or Viber, no WhatsApp and Telegram. China didn’t have Weibo and WeChat Mark Zuckerberg was still experimenting on his connection platform among friends in Harvard, while Friendster and MySpace were lording it over what was then a primitive form of social media. But even back then, there is evidence that the concern over SARS was the chatter on social media, but the scope was very limited and the health authorities did not use their websites as outlets for bulletins and updates.

When 2019-nCoV erupted, social media started the flow on information and sparked a mild panic. Within hours of the announcement of the “possible outbreak” people were storming the train and bus stations out of Wuhan and airline tickets were booked quickly online. Five million people retreated from Wuhan before a lockdown was put in place.

Tech frees information in a controlled state. In a highly controlled state like China, reports like the spread of the coronavirus are usually contained. But on December 30 last year, a doctor from Wuhan named Li Wenliang sent a message to his medical school alumni on WeChat declaring he saw some tests on patients who had symptoms similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The following narration all came from translated messages in from his WeChat and Weibo account as shared to his friends and the world over other socmed platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Li in his first post said that seven patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with an “unknown pneumonia” and were quarantined in the hospital. Feeds on Twitter, WeChat and Viber carried screenshots of Li’s messages.

The untimely and unexpected release of this information was said to have triggered the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission to swiftly act on the report, through a bulletin also circulated online, warning the city’s medical institutions that a “series of patients from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market had an unknown pneumonia.”

Not surprising, the notice also warned that organizations or individuals are “not allowed to release treatment information to the public without authorization.”

Personal becomes public. Li continued to post his ordeal on WeChat, which was shared on many other platforms as soon as it reached Hong Kong and Macau. According to the Beijing Youth Daily, he was summoned by officials at his hospital to explain how he knew about the cases. On January 3, he was called to a local police station and reprimanded for “spreading rumors online” and “severely disrupting social order.” But he was set free about an hour later.

He continued to post about his condition including his hospitalization after he was infected by 2019-nCoV after he treated a patient infected by the disease. Li was not an internist. He was an eye doctor. He was treating the infected patient for an eye disorder and contracted coronavirus in the process.

Social media can create social change. The doctor continued to use Weibo to tell his story.

He wrote in a post dated January 31, 2020 that he “was wondering why (the government’s) official notices were still saying there was no human-to-human transmission, and there were no healthcare workers infected.” He said this in the context of his own infection.

Later that evening, Zhong Nanshan, a government-appointed respiratory expert known for fighting SARS officially declared that the new coronavirus was transmissible from person to person.

Li was to later die of the contagion. Netizens were sad, many were angered, some even pushing allegations that he was assassinated by the State.

Digitalization can quell the spread of a contagion. Digitalization of information could be the single most important cure for the 2019 nCoV. Imagine if the Chinese government failed to act, or tried to cover up the disease and allowed people to go about their business, a real global pandemic could occur. The 5 million people already left Wuhan for the Lunar Year Festival were potential carriers.

Comparatively, SARS (based on a timeline created by WHO) started, spread and was contained in three months. H1N1 in North America was not detected as fast but since no restrictions in movement were made, it spread quickly and killed millions.

Reliable information killed fake news. The initial awareness campaigns came from newsfeeds, bulletins and email campaigns done by the Ministry of Health (MOH) of the People’s Republic of China and the World Health Organization. Responsible netizens spread the information in the form of social media posts, Tweets and comments. There was an overwhelming amount of good, reliable information shared and a high level of awareness that fake news and alarmists posts were quickly shot down.

Participation of the scientific and academic community. The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, for example, quickly developed a publicly available visualization of all data gathered and sifted from reliable sources to track reported cases daily. The map shows new cases, confirmed deaths and recoveries. The timescale is huge and updated as soon as information came in. This information is made useful to journalists, data scientists as the complete set of data is downloadable as a Google Sheet.

Visit https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/ to access this map and data.

Using big data to track and artificial intelligence. A team data scientists led by Professor Andy Tatem, from the UK’s University of Southampton recently used historical data from smartphones, supplied by the Chinese search engine Baidu to track the movement of the virus from Wuhan and made some pretty accurate forecasts of where it would appear.

A health monitoring platform that uses data and artificial intelligence correctly plotted the spread of the virus from Wuhan to Tokyo. Called Bluedot, the Toronto based company that uses big data analytics “to track and anticipate the spread of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases” also beat the North American CDC in issuing warnings about the spread of the contagion.

Information technology will definitely help control the 2019-nCoV spread. Despite the virus overtaking SARS in terms of numbers infected, one must also realize it is a far more powerful virus than SARS, airborne, surviving longer and transmitting faster, with a cure still being developed. But without the awareness created digitally, a global pandemic could be far worse than it currently is.

PETER Tumilag, an OFW in the United Arab Emirates made a purchase from a Chinese online shopping site.

A few days later he received information that his shopping account had been compromised and that there was a data breach.

Privacy and data protection are among the most discussed information technology topics.

There have been local breaches detected by the National Privacy Commission (NPC) involving banks, fast food chains and most recently privacy violations by financing companies using apps. These companies used private personal data and sent emails and texts to friends or contact of borrowers who owe them money. The NPC moved to shut down 26 of 62 financing companies investigated for privacy breaches.

Huge and stiff penalties are being handed out to companies that have experienced data breaches. The Philippines has one of the toughest and tiered penalty structures–as much as P500,000 for the simple act of not assigning a Data Privacy Office (DPO) or up to P5M and over for breaches that involve the release of private sensitive information.

This makes privacy a target for fraudsters who are eager to earn money at the expense of others.

After Tumilag received an email informing him of a privacy breach, he assumed that it was because of the purchase he made, mostly because of the timing and the way the cyber criminals word the emails. But instead of just being informed of a data breach, Tumilag was to receive compensation for the data breach which was allegedly charged to the erring shopping company.

Kaspersky experts have detected this new online fraud scheme. Designed to trick people into thinking they are owed compensation because of personal data leaks, scammers urge users to buy “temporary US social security numbers” worth around $9 (P50) each. A small sum to pay but the volume of people fooled could be massive.

Victims were found in Russia, Algeria, Egypt and the UAE, as well as other countries.

The scheme involves a website allegedly owned by the Personal Data Protection Fund, founded by the US Trading Commission. This fake website looks like a legitimate site but carries a different URL. On the website (which is in Russian but with available translations to most languages) the fake fund “issues compensation to those who may have been subject to a personal data leak and is available to citizens from any country in the world.”

“The scammers themselves are most likely Russian speakers, as suggested by the request for payments in rubles, plus the suspicious similarity of the scheme to other easy money offers that regularly tempt residents of Russia and the CIS. The e-bait in those schemes varies – giveaways, surveys, secret retirement savings, even a part-time job as a taxi dispatcher – but they tend to be in Russian (as are some of the preceding links),” Tatyana Sidorina, security expert at Kaspersky said.

The site can easily fool the unwary. It offers to check whether user data has ever been leaked. For this, one needs to provide their specific surname, first name, phone number, and social media accounts.

The promised compensation is anywhere between $10,000 to $1 million. But the SSN is required. For residents of other countries outside the US, to be able to get alleged compensation, they need to “purchase” the “temporary own social security numbers (SSN)”

Thus in any possible scenario–be it the absence of the SSN or entering the correct existing SSN–the website alerts mistakes and offers to sell a temporary one for the $9 (PHP 450) price. Upon agreement, the victim is redirected to this payment form in Russian or English with the purchase price specified in rubles or dollars respectively.

The specific form depends on the victim’s IP address.

“The bottom line is always the same: the juicy promise of quite a bit of easy money, followed by a demand to pay for an inexpensive service, be it a commission, a ‘securing’ payment, or a temporary SSN. The new scheme is quite a topical one and is related to offering compensation for data leaks. Once some organizations have started to pay users, fraudsters decided there is a monetary opportunity for them as well,” Sidorina says.

In order to stay protected from the potential risks of online fraud, Kaspersky experts advise not to trust payment offers. The rule is that “if we are asked to pay something to then receive the funds, you can be doubly sure it’s a swindle.” Next, always go for trusted resources. One way is to use a reliable security solution, such as Kaspersky Security Cloud, for comprehensive protection from a wide range of threats. It is also imperative to investigate the URL or search the organization to see if it actually exists and if it does, take a close look at its website–look at the “About Us” or do a language evaluation. As a rule a reputable organization will not publish text full of errors and typos.

THE coffee shop used to be the go-to place of the digital age telecommuter. The air conditioning, quiet ambience, power outlets and WiFi connection make it a perfect non-traditional workspace.

That is changing very quickly as the technologically enabled remote worker, or digitally empowered employee is feeling how the sanctuary of the coffee shop has been desecrated, taken over by noisy realtors, chatty students and their noisy peers. Shop owners, burdened by high overheads, have been pulling out the plugs on free Internet connections and free electricity.

This is one reason why companies like IWG have grown quickly. Coffee shops may have their branding appeal as a meet up zone but have lost their perk because of the genuine advantages of the flexible co-working space. Peer networking, managed costs, flexible services and spaces, added to a good communications infrastructure, and even espresso makers.

Today, more than 2.5 million people have used IWG’s services to work more productively using a choice of professional, inspiring and collaborative workspaces, communities and services.

Where did the drive for co-working spaces come from?

Lars Wittig, Country Manager for the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea for IWG, said in a brief chat after a press conference following the launch of their latest venture in Mindanao that it is the digitalization of the workspace that have transformed the way people do business.

“When you realize it, when start-ups or established enterprises realize it, the pace of digitalization is so fast, a workspace that is not flexible is also not productive. Since new technologies are transforming the way people work. Like now people work off their tablets or their phones. Employees want the personal productivity benefits of living and working how and where they want,” Wittig said.

This new venture, a 1,600 square meter space on the third floor of Diamond Tower, a new medium rise building by Davao-based property developer Damosa Land, Inc (DLI). Last January 25 IWG partnered with DLI for its first franchised workspaces in the province. This is scheduled to open by April this year.

“Yes, I am categorically saying that we will definitely opening this space and inaugurating Diamond Tower by April of this year,” Ricardo F. Lagdameo, First Vice President, DLI said in his welcome speech.

Wittig explained how the new Mindanao office space can influence locators as well as its employees creating spaces where people want to work because it is convenient by proximity or by industry.

“It’s not that employees or independent workers don’t want a more organized or formal work environment. What they really want is to find employment closer to where they are.

So that they can be with family after work. They will have more time with themselves. This is how businesses should respond to their employees and this is what a flexible, shared space can provide,” Wittig adds.

Moreover, businesses want the financial and strategic benefits of the flexible office space.

The space that can contract or expand as the business slows down or progresses.

The typical IWG customers are start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, but even large multinationals, and even enterprises have realized the choice of workspaces and communities available to match their needs.

“We are very excited to deepen our partnership with IWG. This franchise partnership will allow us to bring the world-class benefits of flexible working to the businesses and professionals in Mindanao. Our first Regus workspace has been a great success, and we aim to replicate this in our future franchise centers, Lagdameo said.

“IWG’s entry into Davao City in 2016 was also through a partnership with DLI…it was one of IWG’s most successful centers in the Philippines. Since then, we have witnessed the growth in the Mindanao region fueling demand for flexible workspaces from both local and multinational companies,” Wittig said.

During the press conference following the contr act signing between parties, the executives of both companies expressed their continued confidence and renewed energy for the partnership.

“It is truly an honor to return to the Philippines to sign a franchise partnership deal after the first agreement in Cebu City last month. We recognize the strong demand from Mindanao, and are pleased to offer this partnership in cities of Davao, Cagayan de Oro and General Santos to help the local economy create new jobs, stimulate business growth in the surrounding area and improve productivity for enterprises,” Matthew James Kenley, Head of Partnership Growth IWG APAC said.

“Our solid relationship with DLI was built on shared values and drive to succeed. With value propositions such as IWG’s global brand equity, resilient business model, and DLI’s proven track record, we are confident that our partnership will strengthen our footprint in Mindanao and accelerate our growth in the Philippines,” Rowena B. Natividad, Head of Partnership Growth, IWG Philippines.

HUMAN resource managers and decision makers are facing new challenges in the age of digitalization. Disruption of traditional systems has made it difficult for organizations to catch up or revised either process or mindset to answers the changes.

To introduce innovative solutions, the country’s leading full-service human resources company Q2 HR Solutions is inviting HR senior leaders and practitioners of growing organizations, and entrepreneurs, to attend their fifth HR Innovation Conference on March 19, 2020 at Dusit Thani Hotel, Makati City.

With the theme Accelerate: Advancing Organizational Growth in Disruptive Times, the conference will feature renowned HR experts across Southeast Asia as well as industry thought leaders who will share HR best practices, and key insights from their respective fields of expertise. The event will bring to the table useful tools to anticipate and manage change, a highly relevant discussion in the HR industry today.

The conference will offer participants global best practices and tactics on change management from industry thought leaders through immersive workshops.

“We will share practical tools in diagnosing and building their own organization’s change roadmaps. Aside from an HR Wellness Check booth in the venue, the event will likewise provide conference participants with the opportunity to meet and network with senior leaders from various industries,” Sarah McLeod, Q2 HR Solutions Managing Director said.

With a keynote speech from Trixie Whyte, Founder and Chairwoman of Q2 HR Solutions, some of the speakers at the 5TH HR Innovation Conference 2020 are; Shubha Shridharan, Signify’s Chief Learning Officer for Global Human Resources; DM Varun, Skillbean’s Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer; Michelle Cordero-Garcia, Dexcom’s Human Resources Director for Asia Pacific, will talk about; Rhea Primavera, Firesprings’ Consulting’s Chief Strategist; Graham Hitchmough, Senior Principal Management Consultant for Organizational Change and Development at Q2 HR Solutions; and Sarah McLeod, Q2’s Managing Director.

Group rate for three attendees isP7,000. A special early bird rate is P7,500, and walk-in rate is P8,500. All rates are inclusive of VAT with lunch, snacks, and certificate of Participation.

ELECTRIFIED vehicles are the next step in mobility. They have developed from simple transporters into power generators, using the batteries that drive them to create electricity that can be fed back into the grid.

Called the Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) system, specific Mitsubishi EV and PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles) can be used to help stabilize the local electricity supply grid and even provide electricity after a natural disaster or power outage when connected to the Dendo Drive Station.

In addition to charging vehicles, this type of showroom allows the EV/PHEV’s battery to provide power to the building in times of high demand or an emergency. The building will then switch to charging the car at times of low grid demand, or when renewable energy production is at a peak. This has major benefits for the grid and provides cheaper, sustainable power.

The Dendo Drive Station is an energy technology implementation that uses a solar power system to energize its showrooms as well as to supply electricity from EV/PHEVs on display at the showroom. Since Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (Japan) opened the first one in Tokyo in 2016, it has so far set-up 79 Dendo Drive Station showrooms throughout Japan.

Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation (MMPC), recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with five of its dealers, Union Motor Corporation, Fast Autoworld Philippines Corporation, Motorplaza Inc., SFM Sales Corporation and Mindanao Integrated Commercial Enterprises Inc. to roll out the next-generation Dendo Drive Station showrooms in their respective territories.

“Similar to Japan, the Philippines is a country that often experiences many natural disasters,” Osamu Masuko, MMC’s chairman of the board said. South Luzon is currently experiencing the aftermath of the eruption of Taal Volcano over the weekend, which had caused power outages and lack of water and food supplies.

“I believe with the technology of the Dendo Drive Station, communities will be provided with a dependable self-sustaining power source that does not only generate efficient energy supply but also serves as a reliable electrical source during emergency power shortage,” Masuko added.

With MMC’s support, MMPC aims to open Dendo Drive Stations in 5 regions in the Philippines.

The showrooms are also in preparation of the coming of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV to the Philippines by the end of 2020.

Though the primary purpose of solar panel sourced-power is to fill-in all the dealership’s energy needs, or supplement power to the building in times of high demand, it can also feed power into the grid when the supply is high and demand is low (such as on a weekend) or during an emergency.

Mitsubishi intends to contribute to the local community through the disaster prevention awareness activities at dealerships.

The Outland PHEV is expected to be sold in the Philippines and represents the accumulation of MMC’s decades of engineering breakthroughs. It offers a combination of low environmental impact, Super-All Wheel Control active safety, proven reliability and low operating costs.

Since its official global launch in 2013, the electric hybrid SUV has been rolled out to more than 50 countries, with global sales reaching more than 200,000 units. The company’s flagship plug-in hybrid has become the world’s best-selling PHEV. It has a unique architecture consisting of a front and rear electric motor with no gearbox. This translates into benefits for drivers that include significantly reduced weight for greater fuel efficiency, a simpler vehicle layout and smoother driving.