Building a new future amidst Covid-19

We are now in the midst of a pandemic the like of which the humanity has not seen probably in the last hundred years.

Our way of living has gone through a dramatic shift and the question on the top of everybody’s mind is whether life is ever going to be the same again.

It is human experience that we always overestimate the immediate impact and underestimate the long-term impact. Witness what happened at the internet boom. Everybody thought that the world was going internet in the immediate future. It brought a host of internet companies into the play, created an extraordinary boom in the market and it was predictably followed by a rueful bust. But now look behind after 20 years and you find the internet is everywhere. Look at Netflix, Amazon, airBNB ...... and you know that so many industries have changed beyond recognition.

What would be similar changes we will see in the next 20 years that will have their genesis or critical push due to the current pandemic? Some of the direct changes will be like growing movement towards work-from- home.

Why spend endless hours in traffic, polluting the air around us when we can sit in the comfort of our homes, get better productivity and more time with the family? Clearly we are not going to see five days of work from office going forward. This would certainly impact the construction industry and the mobility industry. I see an overall trend towards digitalisation and de- physicalisation. I see a world which will be less energy consuming and more green.

On the other hand, we see a lot of reverse migration. Shall we see people migrating back to urban areas in times to come? Although our knee-jerk reaction is that nobody wants to come back to cities, the truth is urbanisation Is inexorable.

 I think a lot about what is the shape of things to come. But as Mark Twain Has said, It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.....!