ICT Equipment as a Medium to Tackle COVID-19: Development Mgmt

This report examines the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment as a medium to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the shift in lifestyle and the increased reliance on ICT for work, education, and healthcare. The study, based on secondary data, explores the challenges faced and the benefits realized through ICT adoption, including online education, telework, and telemedicine. It also addresses the role of ICT in disseminating information, facilitating collaboration, and enabling contact tracing. The report concludes that ICT has been vital in managing the crisis, but also points out challenges like the digital divide and the spread of misinformation. Desklib provides access to similar reports and solved assignments for students.

Use of ICT equipment as a medium to tackle with Covid-19 pandemic
Tribhuwan University
Balkhu, Kathmandu
Development Management-II
Submitted By: Jyotshana Submitted To: Dr. Raj Poudel
28th August, 2021

Table of contents
Acknowledgment…......................................................................................................3
Abstract........................................................................................................................4
Introduction..................................................................................................................5
Research Methodology…............................................................................................7
Findings….....................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................11
References….................................................................................................................12

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my research supervisor as well as my subject teacher, Dr. Raj Poudel for
their expert guidance and uplifting inspiration and cooperation throughout my research work
without which the present work would not have been possible. For their valuable discussions and
guidance, it has been possible on my part to plan, review and give shape to my dissertation work.
This research article has been a great learning experience for me and I would like to express my
gratitude towards all the people who guided me throughout and without whose guidance this
research article would not have been completed successfully.
Thank you
Jyotshana

ABSTRACT
This study shows the difference in the life style of people before pandemic and after pandemic
and the rapid growth in the use of ICT equipment. The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in
restrictions on activities involving physical contact, gathering, etc. People from all over the
world have applied the system of work from home and online education with the use of ICT
equipment. This study focuses on the use of ICTs by different actors, including individuals,
nonprofit organizations, and governments around the globe in responding to this COVID crisis.
The nature of this study is descriptive in nature and the study is based on secondary data sources.
The results of the study show different challenges and obstacles faced by people during covid-19
and how the people combat the situation through the ICT equipment. Proper and managed ICT
can help in tackling with covid-19 that has been greatly affecting social and economic life of
people. Various technology innovations and applications have been developed to fight the
coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic also has implications for the design, development, and use
of technologies.

Introduction
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information
technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration
of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers as per IFGICT, as
well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage and audiovisual, that enable users to
access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information(Information and communications
technology, n.d).Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are pivotal in the existing
social order and especially during the COVID‐19 global pandemics. ICT is an umbrella term that
includes any communication device, encompassing radio, television, cell phones, computer and
network hardware, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and appliances
with them such as video conferencing and distance learning (Information and communications
technology, n.d). Likewise, covid-19 has been first discovered at Wuhan city of China. Then it
gradually spread all over the world. It is a deadly virus.
Today, people from all over the world depend highly on ICT equipment’s for carrying out their
task. As the world today is facing a deadly virus i.e. Covid-19 which has compelled people to be
highly alerted of the infection and stay at home as far as possible for living. With the growth of
covid-19 infection rate, people from all over the world has been highly depend on ICT
equipment’s as an alternative mean to carryout regular activities such as working, studying etc.
The covid-19 pandemic has immensely affected the function of hospital system, school,
businesses, and the global economic. Online education, telework and telemedicine have been
playing major roles in the society to carry out the regular activities and slow down the spread of
coronavirus. This quick response to the coronavirus threat is a reminder that the digital
technology could bring many benefits and can play an essential role in managing and reducing

the risks caused by the lockdown during the pandemic and even after the pandemic (Richter,
2020).The COVID-19 outbreak is rapidly changing the workplace. Millions of people are
moving their workspaces to their homes through teleworking. Many industries benefit as
knowledge workers learn to operate virtually, work from home, and use cloud services to process
and store files. We are witnessing wider acceptance of online services by people and diverse
types of industries during this pandemic. The importance of IT infrastructure in enabling
teleworking, online learning, e-government, e-commerce, and other online activities has been
widely recognized (Wu he et al., 2020).
In a nutshell, the use of ICT equipment during Covid-19 has brought a drastic change in the
lifestyle of people from the entire world. ICT is a broad concept and the concepts are evolving to
tackle the challenges caused by covid-19 virus. The use of ICT has advanced the existing
systems of government, schooling, workplace etc.

Research Methodology
The study attempts to explore the use of ICT equipment to tackle the challenges caused by covid-
19 pandemic. The researcher used a qualitative research design to carry out the overall research
process. The qualitative aspects have been taken into consideration for the study. The researcher
has gathered information and data for research through secondary sources of data. Journals,
articles and e-news have been a great help to present the information in detail. Hence, the study
is descriptive.

Findings
In this global health crisis, ICT equipment has made it easier for people to gather information
related to covid-19 and aware about its symptoms and guide its safety measures to the people. In
context of Nepal, regarding all the challenges the use of ICT has been slowly increased. The
government notices can be easily found in the official pages of different administration and
department. At past for doing any government related work we should be standing in line for
hours to do any kind of government paper work. Now, we could easily apply or do government
related paper work through the means of internet connection.
Governments across the world, meanwhile, are using ICT to collect information about the
epidemic and facilitate collaboration among different stakeholders (The power of ICT,
2020). While health, economy, and political considerations emphasized national boundaries, art
and ICTs enabled individuals to emerge from isolation and find common ground to support the
wellbeing of others, regardless of their nationality, health, socio‐economic status, or political
views (Shengnan Yang et al., 2020).ICT has been a means of both resolving challenges caused
by covid-19 and responding to the new reality of everyday. Numbers of mobile application has
been effectively use for video conference, meeting and webinar. With the growing depression
caused by covid-19, ICT has made easier to conduct webinar to aware people of mental wellness.
Through the use of ICT it has been easier to know the situation of Covid-19 situation of each
corner of the world and helped to respond faster in the needed zone/district where the condition
is getting worse. Countries like South Korea and Hong Kong illustrate emergent best practices
for the use of ICT in such crises (Nirupam Bajpai et al., 2020).Similarly, countries like New
Zealand and Taiwan has wonderfully used ICT application to contact tracing the people newly

infected with the coronavirus and trace and update the health situation of people staying home
quarantine. This has played a major role in controlling the spread of coronavirus.
Work from Home (WFH) is a work concept where employees can do their work from home. The
advances in ICT have given the option to do work virtually, leading to more efficiency and the
changing concept of the workplace (Saerang, 2019).It has helped to maintain work-life balance
in this global pandemic. Group decision making has been easier than ever. At past very few gets
an opportunity to attend group meeting as it was time consuming to go on meeting. Now, the use
of ICT equipment has become more habitual and saves time of people as well as increase
participants for group meeting as anyone can attend virtual meeting from wherever they are. In
compared to the developed country, the developing countries are still struggling to maintain
work from home schedule. Most the people have very few ICT a skill because of which people
has confusion to work using ICT equipment. This global pandemic has given an opportunity to
all the worker who lack ICT skills has helped to learn, practice and developed their ICT skills
and also facilitated in personality development of workers.
After the spread of Covid-19 in the world, the educational institution as well has adapt the new
of learning which is different from the traditional approach where the student attend the classes
with physical presence at school. It is also a new challenge to the teacher as they are supposed to
learn new teaching method to make student actively involved during online classes and make the
online course more creative. With the challenges caused by pandemic in the day to day activity
of the people, it has been advancing and updating ICT equipment to tackle with the situation
smoothly. In Nepal only 27% of the students are studying through online classes and 63% are
still using self-study method. The student taking online classes through private schools are 43%
and 18% percent from community school as per study conducted by UNICEF. Those who do not

have access to internet have been depending on education aired on TV and radio. These could
not have been possible without the ICT equipment. The world has never been interconnected as
today after this health crisis.
Likewise, ICT and social media plays a significant role in meeting diverse information needs,
demands for online consultation, and online inquiries for the public during this global health
crisis. The negative side of ICT is “global misinfo-demic”. Global misinfo-demic is spreading
faster than covid-19 virus itself. Global misinfo‐demic is fake news, rumors, myths,
misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and even hatred. It is critical to understand
how people use ICT to seek for trustworthy, timely, and authoritative information and to avoid
misinformation and disinformation.
Thus, this study finds out that ICT and the growth of its use after the covid-19 pandemic has both
the positive as well as negative results. But this study shows more of positive aspect of ICT uses
which is greatly playing role to combat covid-19 challenges in day-to-day life.

Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced significant impacts on people, businesses, and society.
The pandemic also has implications for the design, development, and use of technologies (Sein,
2020). Technologies can be useful for reducing the severity of the coronavirus pandemic’s
impact on people, organizations, and society. However, the use of technologies to combat the
pandemic raises challenges such as security, privacy, biases, ethics, and the digital divide (Wu he
et al., 2020).This paper study and evaluates the technology and its use accordingly to the nature
of covid-19 effect on human social system. The pandemic required strong coordination for
connected data, people, and systems to facilitate worldwide collaboration.
This paper study the current scenario of Covid-19 and the challenges caused by it where ICT has
mentioned as greatest medium to tackle with the situation in day to day life. This global health
crisis has given opportunity to strengthen the public health system, group decision making and
modernized the teaching method. Moreover, it has made companies and individuals realized the
importance of learning ICT skills. Various ICT related innovation has been possible with the
growth in challenge caused by coronavirus.
Hence, the use of ICT plays a vital role in dealing with difficult situation created by Covid-19. It
has helped to passed information related to covid-19 to the people at right time. ICT has made
people life easier. With the increase in ICT use in every sector, it has made compulsory for the
people to learn ICT skills. In this 21st century everything has been computerized and the ICT
equipment is increasing with each of its innovation.

References
Information and communications technology.(n.d).In Wikipedia. Reference from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communications_technology
NirupamBajpai, et al. (2020, April). ICTs and Public Health in the Context of COVID-19.
Retrieved from https://csd.columbia.edu/research-projects/ict-and-covid-19
Richter A. Locked-down digital work.International Journal of Information Management. 2020;
55
Saerang. (2019). ICTAllowsPeopleWorkingFrom Home: A Literature Review. Retrieved
from http://budi.rahardjo.id/files/courses/2020/DL-023201905002-Report-AISaerang.pdf
Sein M.K. The serendipitous impact of COVID-19 pandemic: A rare opportunity for research
and practice. International Journal of Information Management. 2020;55
Shengnan Yang et al., (2020). The use of ICT during COVID‐19. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645918/
The power of ICT: Using technology to combat the pandemic. (2020, June 2). Hindustan
Times.Retrieved from https://www.livemint.com/brand-stories/the-power-of-ict-using-
technology-to-combat-the-pandemic-11591095529212.html
Wu he et al. (2020).Information technology solutions, challenges, and suggestions for tackling
the COVID-19 pandemic. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7724285/?fbclid=IwAR1Hkz6DkmSYHHMDm
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