To date, it’s somewhat debatable as to what the health effect of the Coronavirus has on the world, particularly in the USA. However, its profound impact might be the way it’s affecting every person in the world’s day-to-day life. Recently some of our meetings with customers that had long since been planned were cancelled and conferences, with thousands of registrants, are being cancelled left and right.
An office we work with in India has been evacuated for an undetermined amount of time due to the fact one person in the office building contracted the virus. Schools in Italy’s most affected areas are closed. Shelves were being emptied in supermarkets all over Eastern Europe a couple of weeks ago. While the health effect has been felt in China, Iran and Italy more than anywhere else, the change of life has been felt everywhere. It’s impacting the economy on a global scale.
Recently our partner UiPath got involved in providing a solution to compress the diagnosis time for the Coronavirus by 50%.
They utilized common programs that are used to diagnose the common flu and have repurposed it using AI/ML/RPA techniques. Think about this for a second. Other than the potential health impacts for humans, the other factor we are fighting against is its spread. Time is of the essence. UiPath using its unique set of tools was able to apply a solution to a problem in a short timespan. To me that is the crux of RPA.
In the past, I have been on tech projects that have lasted years to implement software. Back in the day we would call our automation tool a “jack knife”. That’s because of its many functions that weren’t designed for any specific application. Today, with the rich set of activities and the platform it’s built on (.NET), the UiPath Suite provides every mechanism needed to deal with any problem in a very short amount of time.
This is the direction we should be going. Using Intelligent Automation should help society overcome challenges in every aspect of life, not just in the business department.
RPA should be looked at as the tool to use in case any repeatable processes appear, maybe even helping to diagnose diseases. Bringing together knowledge of experts from different domains will quickly result in more and more world-wide use cases for RPA tools like this one.
I’m a fan of the quote “There is never a problem, only an opportunity,” otherwise known as looking at the bright side of things. Hopefully the spread of this disease will be limited in its impact on individual lives. And maybe it will not only teach modern society how to react when facing crises, but also help in the discovery of necessary tools that can be used to overcome them.
Peter S. Camp is the CTO and Founder of CampTek Software. He has been developing RPA Applications for over 15 years. For further questions, discussion or inquiry about CampTek Software Services, contact info@campteksoftware.com.
