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What are the Software Development Trends of 2021? – Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News – Daily Host News

What are Decembers good for? Yes, they are about summarizing in the last years and building priorities for the upcoming one.

In this article, we will get a glimpse into how the software development world is going to look like in the next year and what you should include in your New Year resolutions and plans.

No matter how fast the niche develops and changes, we were able to find 8software development market trendsthat will be hot and thriving in 2021. Moreover, we will take a look at the most popular development technologies and the most attractive niches for software developers. Lets jump straight into it!

HackerRank, a virtual meeting spot of developers from all around the world, has launched the largestsurvey on developers skills. More than 100,000 programmers from 162 countries took part in the research and that is what the international community has to say:

JavaScript is one of the most required languages in software development. Around 53% of hiring managers believe it to be one of the most important languages. HRs are also looking for fluent speakers of Python (49,5%) and Java (44,1%).

An interesting tendency is to be observed: hiring managers may not require any specific language but rather look for a fitting person. It is not as visible globally (14,3%) but one in five managers in the Americas is likely to be language agnostic.

The situation with the top frameworks is more dynamic, compared to languages. Angular JS, React, and Spring is still top-3. However, ExpressJS, ASP have lost their positions while Django went up. Indeed, with the rise of AI (we will tackle this later) and a consequent rise of Python, Django is becoming more and more widely used.

One more important indicator that is shaping the next years software development is what languages developers want to learn. This gives us an idea of what technologies are needed in projects, or can provide higher wages. According to the HackerRank report,the main languages developers want to learn are Go, Python, and Kotlin, and frameworks React, AngularJS, and Django.

COVID-19 did have an impact on the software development distribution in the niches. Obviously, there are niches that were put in the spotlight due to the pandemic, such as healthcare, education technology, e-commerce, fintech, cybersecurity, and others. Weobserved growth in demandin these niches and consequently their rapid progress in software development.

Since it looks like that the pandemic will not be over as soon as 2020 ends, these niches will still be in great need of new software. Moreover, many of us got so used to the benefits of edTech and e-commerce that the trend may stay here forever.

Cloud technologies are yet another niche that rose significantly during the pandemic. In fact,59% of enterprisesexpect to exceed their cloud usage plans.

First of all, as many companies are crashing under the restrictions, they try to save as much as possible and reduce their costs. Cloud computing is a perfect opportunity to do so.

Secondly, it is easier to work with clouds from the home office where you can not discuss the changes in a room or gain access to corporate laptops.

Therefore, it seems like the cloud is here to stay and continue to develop in 2021.

Since AR and mixed reality are actively used for remote training, healthcare, gaming, and human augmentation enhance human abilities by combining medicine and technology, it is obvious that these technologies will be developing given all the circumstances of the past year.

The approximate pace of the global mixed reality market growth is73.2%per year in the next few years. And as always, bigger investments and more new projects appearing in the niche means more rapid tech progress and faster implementation of innovations.

The Internet of Things may not be seen as the latest thing anymore but a part of our reality. The rapid growth of IoT has become so natural. Consequently, in 2021 it will be still thriving, and even morelife-changing projectsare to be expected.

Considering that humanity is still likely to stay at home after 2020, tech companies will come up with new ways to make not leaving the house more pleasurable. Software developers will be in much need of the projects realization.

IoT is based on AI. Therefore, the niche will be as rapidly growing as the previous one.

Yet, it may face evena bigger boost. AI is widely used in offices to prevent gatherings, detect asymptomatic COVID-19 infected, and automate processes that require big human teams. AI also helps retailers to understand how customers adapt to stay-at-home policies and may predict and, by doing so, prevent other pandemics.

Nowadays businesses that operate in high competitive niches have to provide the best experience for their users in order to stay commercially viable. That is why native applications design specifically for each platform become a trend. They help to achieve the high usability and functionality of the app.

That being said, the iOS and Android developers will be in demand in 2021 too.

Native apps are amazing but this flawlessness of their costs quite a lot. Companies who can not afford a native app will switch to PWAs that provide nearly as good an experience for a reasonable price.

PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) arewebapps which is a fundamental difference from native apps on iOS and Android. But they allow achieving almost the same qualities as native apps in terms of speed, user experience, security, and so on.

It is official now: remote working is no worse than one in the office. While companies have more knowledge of how to work remotely and manage teams as well, they are less resistant tohire offshore developersand freelancers.

Usually, this allows them to choose from a bigger talent pool and even save money by hiring from offshore regions.

It is obvious that during the crisis year businesses are trying to decrease their costs as much as possible and reduce staff members to do so. Therefore, they may not have money for a whole development team and will gladly use the opportunity to develop a needed app without knowledge of coding.

Therefore low-code or no-code solutions that make it possible to create websites or mobile apps for non-tech people are getting so popular. Theapproximate annual growthduring the next 4 years is expected to be more than 28%.

Paradoxically, the growth of no-code solutions will increase the need for software engineers that develop these projects, especially as these tools are predicted to be more complex.

IT industry trendsof 2021 predict further development of such technology like AR, IoT, AI, and others. In an attempt to reduce costs, companies will go for no-coding platforms, clouds, and PWAs. COVID-winners are dictating the trends of native apps development and distribution of software development among niches.

The pandemic pretty much controls software development trends but gives an opportunity to grow for much-needed niches as AI and human augmentation.

Source: Software Development Trends of 2021

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2021 – The year of data extortion – DCD – DatacenterDynamics

New business model

In response, cybercriminals have adapted their business model. Now they steal proprietary or embarrassing data and then threatening to publicly release the stolen files if the victim doesnt pay up, increasing the pressure. Some of the cybercriminals even argue during negotiations that the victim will have to pay either the ransom or will face a privacy regulation fine, which could be a few million pounds in the case of GDPR. The argument is that the victim will lose less if they pay the ransom, and they may have a cyber insurance policy that can cover some of the ransom for them. Needless to say, the ransom demands can be very high, as the initial asking price of US$ 34 million during the recent Foxconn attack showed.

Of course, not all initial ransom demands are paid, but even if an organisation pays just a fraction, it is still very profitable for the attackers. Telemetry data from the Acronis Cyber Protection Operations Centre (CPOC) shows that 19 percent of the global ransomware detections in November were in the USA, rising 11 percent in the last quarter. We expect this trend to grow even further in 2021, with an increase in automated attacks and more crimeware-as-service collaborations.

Another clear trend is the focus on attacking MSPs and cloud data centres. The accelerated digital transformation due to the pandemic, in combination with the lack of cyber protection skills, might be one of the reasons why many small and medium-sized businesses are turning to MSPs for security services. Unfortunately, this move makes the MSPs an even more interesting target for cybercriminals. If attackers manage to compromise a service provider, they can gain access to the internal tools and spread the attack to all of the connected clients. This strategy amplifies the attacks impact and provides new profit opportunities, as the cybercriminals can now also go after each individual client. Even if the attacker does not leverage that trusted relationship for further attacks, there is still a high dependency on data centres for all customers. Any downtime at the data centre can be very expensive and disruptive, such as when desktop-as-a-service software is used. This disruption puts additional pressure on the service provider to pay the ransom. The cloud hosting and services provider Netgain discovered this fact the hard way at the end of November. The company was compromised by ransomware, forcing it to take some of its data centres offline. According to the company, this was in accordance with further efforts to contain the issue and install additional security measures. For clients, the result was a downtime incident that was very disruptive.

Such attacks can be seen as an expansion of the living-off-the-land tactics, as attackers use existing tools within the IT infrastructure against the victim. Blocking such living-off-the-land tactics is often difficult because legitimate tools such as PowerShell or WMI are involved. A common modus operandi is to find domain administrator accounts or management consoles, uninstall all security software on them, and delete all available backups before using the same software distribution channel to roll out the malware across the enterprise. With the move to the cloud, the attack surface also increases, which we expect cybercriminals will exploit in the coming year.

It comes as no surprise that cybercriminals have used the COVID-19 pandemic to increase their attacks. They did not use groundbreaking new methods, but rather automated existing techniques to increase the frequency of their attacks. With the advances in AI/ML and available cloud services, this will likely continue to increase and might even produce new attack techniques such as swarm attacks.

As we detail in the 2020 report, we expect cybercriminals to increase their attacks against employees working from home, as they are still not adequately protected. A recent survey by Acronis showed that 92 percent of global organisations had to adopt new technologies to complete the switch to remote work. As a result, 72 percent of global organisations saw their IT costs increase during the pandemic.

The adoption of double-extortion attacks will continue to spread, replacing encryption as the primary ransomware tactic. And in their effort to maximise the impact of their attacks, some ransomware groups will turn their focus onto new fields such as cloud infrastructure, going after data buckets, serverless apps, and containers.

Going forward into 2021, it will be important to have a data-centric cyber protection strategy to combat the increasing wave of automated attacks against all locations where data is stored or processed.

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The Top 21 Security Predictions for 2021 – Government Technology

When the topic of 2021 security predictions came up at a recent meeting of top cyberindustry executives, several leaders starting laughing.

Really? After we completely blew it last year? said one chief strategist.

Wow! Were not even out of the woods yet with COVID-19, said a marketing expert. How can we talk about the post-pandemic world with credibility?

I doubt many cybersecurity companies will fully participate right now Dan. So many moving parts, industry disruptions, budget challenges, political issues, new tech unknowns and more.

The many bah humbug thoughts and opinions shared about even attempting to look at upcoming online cybertrends reminded me of this 2016 Computerworld editorial on the folly of cybersecurity predictions and my response in CSO Magazine explaining why we continue to have more security predictions and how you can benefit.

But despite some naysayer forecasts assuming a lack of interest in security predictions for the coming year, I can definitively announce another growth in new security industry predictions, forecasts and related trend reports (with new lists) for 2021.

In the past two months I have received a deluge of emails with interest from small, medium and large companies who want to get on board the prediction/forecast train now. Many others are back for more.

Some cybersecurity findings that will impact next year require digging and Google searching. Nevertheless, there are more companies participating, with more interest, more forecasts, and bolder statements about future cybersecurity directions and our coming online life after the pandemic recedes.

Yes, we are seeing some new twists, as we do every year. More companies are renaming these reports away from the traditional predictions or forecast. White papers and reports are using words like trends, findings, cyberissues, recommended solutions, actions required, themes or other words that still point to their desire to describe what happened, what is coming next and what needs to be done now to prepare for 2021 and beyond.

A few companies, like McAfee, decided to hold off and issue their prediction reports in January, so they are not included. But no matter which words are used, all of these organizations seek to be seen as thought leaders and/or trend-setters for new, global cybersolutions and even crisis imperatives.

Whos right? Who should we listen to after 2020? Where are the true thought leaders? You will need to decide, but without a doubt, these lists can help. I urge you to follow the links and dig much deeper into key topics.

Last week, I released my roundup of 2020 cybersecurity trends, which describes how COVID-19 brought a global cyber pandemic. Shortly after that year-end report was released, we learned about the massive scale of the SolarWinds breach, which even impacted the U.S. nuclear weapons agency. Therefore, the cyber pandemic was even broader and deeper than previously revealed while the headline topic remains the same.

Reviewing 2020 Predictions Good, Bad and Ugly

Last December, in The Top 20 Security Predictions for 2020, we reported this about the new decade: Common prediction themes across vendors include the 2020 elections in the U.S., more targeted ransomware, more ways to attack the cloud, and an explosion of problems with deepfake technology.

Theres disagreement on the most important cyberthreats to focus on as we head into 2020, even though everyone agrees that cybersecurity is more important than ever before. Just as in 2019, we have the continuation of arguments for and against AI (i.e., how helpful is AI really and will our enemies use it or not?). Also, the continued disagreement on whether cloud versus mobile threats are more of a challenge.

Of course, there is no mention of a global pandemic and the impacts that it would have regarding an explosion of security issues from more staff working from home. I did write this: Finally, will cyber terrorism reemerge? Very few dire predictions (again) about Cyber 9/11s or Cyber Pearl Harbors or even people dying in hospitals from cyberattacks.

Little did we know that a cyber pandemic would be the top year-end summary story for 2020, which would include ransomware, data breaches, health-care attacks impacting patients and now the SolarWinds data breach. In June 2020, I published this mid-year set of blog predictions in a special coronavirus edition with select vendors.

2021 Security Industry Prediction Trends

Moving on to predicting 2021, here are some major trends that cut across a large number of cybersecurity industry prediction reports:

The Top 21 Security Predictions by Security Industry Companies

Important Note: I urge readers to visit these company portals, read their full prediction reports and see the details on each research item. Our goal is to point you in the right direction for more details and solution specifics.

1) Trend Micro takes the top prize (again) for another outstanding research report with so much more packed into an easy-to-access document with references as well as great summaries and sub topics.

Turning the Tide: Trend Micro Security Predictions for 2021 starts with the summary: In 2021, organizations will scramble to deal with the far-reaching effects while striving to stay secure as online dependency grows. We discuss the developments that are not only plausible but ones that should also be anticipated. We look into the drivers of cybersecuritys near future and how organizations will have to adapt as threats and technologies exert their influence. Our report aims to empower organizations and decision-makers to frame a proper, strategic response that can withstand change and disruption.

This year, Trend Micro offers details on:

Specific Trend Micro security prediction highlights:

2) Watchguard once again issued a great report entitled 2021 Cybersecurity Predictions with videos and much more. In 2021 and beyond, we predict that cyber criminals will find new and innovative ways to attack individuals, their homes and devices, in order to find a path to your trusted corporate network. The global pandemic has rapidly accelerated the existing shift toward remote work, where employees operate beyond the protection of the corporate firewall. In turn, hackers will exploit vulnerabilities found in the gaps between people, their devices, and the corporate network.

Watchguards top eight predictions include:

3) FireEye FireEye always offers an excellent set of helpful materials in their report. This year the report is called A Global Reset: Cyber Security Predictions 2021. The 12-page FireEye/Mandiant forecast addresses these topics:

Heres an excerpt:

Despite the urgency of their work, threat actors will continue to target healthcare providers and vaccine makers. In the near term, the coronavirus will likely continue to have a significant impact on normal business operations, with a focus on supporting remote work, virtual events and new productivity platforms. The pandemic forced almost every organization to become better at operating under significantly changed working conditions and in the wake of a changing environment, IT and IT security challenges will most likely persist throughout 2021 .In the longer term, technology solutions will step in to facilitate the return to work, school and other activities, potentially introducing new risks for privacy, personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI). Similarly, the desire to reduce the risk of human exposure may further accelerate the shift to autonomous vehicle and robotic solutions in transportation, manufacturing and other fields.

4) Splunk has again produced an impressive (21-page) pdf/ebook with some excellent analysis and their Data Security Predictions for 2021. Here are a few:

The sheer amount of security alerts, of potential threats, is too much for humans to handle alone. Already, automation and machine learning help human security analysts separate the most urgent alerts from a sea of data, and take instant remedial action against certain threat profiles. A July article in VentureBeat noted that Chase is using machine learning not only to target customers with more appealing marketing campaigns; the banking giant uses supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms to identify known and novel security threats.Ram Sriharsha, Splunks head of machine learning, expects AI/ML security tools to grow in their sophistication and capability, both in terms of flagging anomalies and in automating effective countermeasures.

5) Kaspersky Labs Kaspersky always produces a ton of great material regarding cyberthreats for the coming year, threat reports, detailed analysis of risks, and so much more from all over the world in different sectors. The problem (and reason they are not higher on this list) is that it is hard to find and very segmented and targeted towards many different audiences. While this may be a deliberate marketing tool that works for them around the world (and they are much bigger outside the U.S.), it is tough to find one solid list of all their predictions.

The good news is that I have pulled from different lists and provide links here.

First, start with these Kaspersky Advanced Threat predictions for 2021 (see report for more details under each item):

Second, there are some great ICS-CERT threat predictions here:

Finally, see this Kaspersky list that reviews 2020 predictions and adds more 2021 predictions on cyberthreats to financial organizations:

6) Check Point Check Point again offers a very solid list of predictions in a variety of categories. I must give credit to Check Point for their extensive coverage of cybersecurity during the pandemic, which is highlighted here with best practices under the headline of Cyber Pandemic.

Heres their list with more details in the link:

Pandemic-Related Developments

Malware, Privacy and Cyberwar

New 5G and IoT Platforms

7) Gartner Most security and technology pros are aware of the outstanding content and analysis offered by Gartner. However, most of their reports and analyses come with a hefty price tag, which is why they seldom rise to the top of my annual list of security predictions, trends and forecasts. (Reminder: I do review materials that ask for contact information to download, but I do not review materials that cost users money to read.)

For 2021, I was pleasantly surprised by Gartners security trends and other materials in report format that are available for free if you know where to look. Although there are pointers to plenty of subscriber content and the items below are in non-typical formats; nevertheless, the material is excellent and very helpful for security analysis and planning for 2021.

First, we have Gartners cybersecurity research for the top 10 security project priorities for 2021. Here are the first seven of those with details in the link:

Second, we have this excellent (and free to download) 2021 Planning Guide for Security and Risk Management. There are numerous pieces to this guide, but I am only focusing on the trends for 2021:

8) Forcepoint Forcepoint offers several intriguing 2021 predictions in a series of blog posts available at their x-labs portal. The last item on insider threats is an eye-opener. Here are their top predictions with a few summaries:

With the move to mass remote working and accelerated digital transformation in 2020, cybersecurity has moved up the foodchain. Cybersecurity is now a business differentiator, and it needs a category disruptor. The need for a converged, digital, cloud-delivered platform means well see the emergence of the Zoom of Security a high-tech system that just works and is easily accessible for the everyday consumer.

In the past weve thought of insider threats as disgruntled employees who walk out of the building with proprietary information hidden in their briefcases. But today, your employees may be scattered around the world, you may hire them after only meeting via Zoom, and they may never step foot inside one of your offices. And today, you can buy almost anything on the dark web, including trusted insiders. In 2021, I expect to see organized cells of recruitment infiltrators offering specifically targeted means for bad actors to become trusted employees, with the goal of exfiltrating priceless IP. These bad actors, literally, will become deep undercover agents who fly through the interview process and pass all the hurdles your HR and security teams have in place to stop them.

9) Fortinet New Cybersecurity Threat Predictions for 2021 and the well-written and unique FortiGuard Labs Cyber Threat Predictions for 2021 offer the following predictions under three main headings (with many more details in the report links):

The Intelligent Edge Is a Target

Innovations in Computing Performance Will Also Be Targeted

Artificial Intelligence Will Be Key

10) Crowdstrike Crowdstrike was one of several companies that came out with an excellent report that uses new words besides predictions or forecasts, but essentially offers many of the same concepts with a product focus. Crowdstrike calls their insights themes, but they also use words like findings and trends in the beginning.

Their new 38-page report is entitled Crowdstrike Services Cyber Front Line Report: Incident Response and Proactive Services from 2020 and Insights that Matter for 2021. It offers an excellent forward by company President Shawn Henry (who is a former FBI lead on cyber.)

Some findings and trends:

Here are Crowdstrikes top themes, with more details and recommended responses under each heading available in the report.

11) Forrester Similar to Gartner, there is more free Forrester prediction content this year than I have ever seen. I am impressed with the number of predictions and scope of coverage that can be found on their Predictions 2021 website. After you download their free report (contact information required), here is a sample of what you will find related to security in some respect (with many more details in the report):

Other Forrester security predictions can be found here and here. Here are some excerpts:

12) AT&T Threat Traq Security Predictions (see their video for highlight details)

AT&T Cybersecurity also released an impressive report entitled 5G and the Journey to the Edge, which has some implied predictions for 2021 but is mostly a solutions guide to moving to 5G. It contained the following takeaways (with details in the report):

13) LogRhythm Labs six 2021 security predictions with some helpful infographics at the end. Again, see the report for details under each item.

14) The Enterprisers Project released these 7 security trends to watch in 2021, which includes items from IBM, Red Hat, Sungard AS, Veracode, SAS, Kenna Security and AttackIQ. I encourage readers to go to the article and read the details, but here are the headlines:

15) Proofpoint offers these Seven 2021 Security Predictions and Trends to Watch with some different twists, but with familiar themes.

16) BAE Systems According to BAE's 2021 Cyber Security Predictions, from the rise of ransomware to remote working, it is time to shore up your defenses (Note: The U.K. spelling in the report has been changed to U.S. spelling for these excerpts.) In the report, James Muir of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence lays out his 2021 cybersecurity predictions on ransomware, synthetic media, hacking for hire and remote working for organizations and financial services organizations.

17) Symantec/Broadcom Symantec 2021 Cyber Security Predictions Looking Toward the Future.

Symantec prediction reports are nothing like they were back in 2017 when they set the prediction standard, but they do offer a glorified blog on key topics this year. Here are their top three:

18) Bitglass Anurag Kahol, CTO of Bitglass, offered these seven cybersecurity predictions in Security Magazine with helpful backup material and links with more details in the article. No huge surprises here.

19) TechBeacon offers an excellent piece in The future of DevOps: 21 predictions for 2021.

Here are their six cybersecurity items:

20) Thycotic again offers an intriguing and sophisticated list of predictions from my respected friend and global cyberexpert Joseph Carson. Ive been on numerous panels with Joseph, and his cyberexpertise and stories in many areas are exceptional. The piece is called Cyber Security Trends and Predictions for 2021, and Reflections on 2020.

Here are some of Thycotics security prediction highlights:

21) Imperva offers another good list of 2021 predictions with details in this video.

Here are their top five security predictions:

Bonus Items: Take a Close Look at These Four More Security Predictions Lists

- Bugcrowd offers an excellent infographic with their security prediction items from Casey Ellis:

- Netskope: I really like these two prediction lists (five safe bets and five long shots) created by Netskope Chief Strategy Officer Jason Clark.

Here are three of the ten:

- Information Security Buzz has a great list of cyberindustry leaders and other experts with random security predictions worth studying. Here are a few:

- InfoSecurity Magazine offers these 10 security predictions for 2021. Here are their top three:

Honorable Mentions

- Synopsys 2021 software security predictions:

- Computer Weekly Top IT predictions in APAC in 2021

- Security7.net 7 Cybersecurity Predictions for 2021 ...

- Digicert 2021 Security Predictions. I think they read my unemployment fraud blog, because I not only agree, but this is a huge underreported issue.

- IronNet IronNet's top 10 predictions for 2021

- Forbes There are several Forbes lists, and this one was compiled by Jeff MacMillan, Forbes council member.

- Another Forbes List By Louis Columbus: Top 20 Predictions Of How AI Is Going To Improve Cybersecurity In 2021

- One More Forbes List The Best Cybersecurity Predictions For 2021 Roundup

- Radware Public Cloud Down Again? Predictions for 2021

Radware also offers this video with their 2021 security predictions:

- Mondaq.com: (Australia predictions) Our Top 10 Digital Law Predictions For 2021

We expect the increase in the frequency and severity of cybersecurity incidents, particularly ransomware and phishing attacks, to continue unabated in 2020. However, we expect this will lead to increased innovation in legal actions around these issues, especially relating to customers suffering from a cybersecurity incident impacting a vendor or supplier of theirs, where the customer is subject to extreme limitations or exclusions of liability in their contract with that vendor or supplier.

- SME10x A Global Reset: Predicting Cybersecurity Trends in 2021

- Checkmarx: 2021 Software Security Predictions: Our Experts Weigh In

- WhiteHat Security WhiteHat Security Unveils Top Application Security Predictions for 2021

- Jumio - Enterprises Step Up Identity Verification to Combat Rising Account Takeover, Identity Fraud and Credential Stuffing Attacks in 2021

- AttackIQ 5 Accelerating Digital Trends That Will Impact Risk Management in 2021

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The Top 21 Security Predictions for 2021 - Government Technology

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Digital Transformation Trends That Will Dominate Software Businesses in 2021 – Devdiscourse

The events of 2020 literally came out of nowhere. When the effects of the pandemic were first felt in mid-March, no one fully understood the impact they would have on society moving forward. In less than one year, digital transformation advanced more than it did in the previous two years.

There were steps taken toward a digital transformation that was taking place gradually over the past few years. However, many businesses felt content to ease their way into adopting cloud computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. The events surrounding the pandemic pushed them toward accepting these things if they were going to survive.

While digital transformation is forcing businesses to change the way they operate many organizations around the world are not able to embrace it. According to Business Wire's report, a Canadian study by Beagle Research Group showed that 2/3 of Canadian organizations are not ready to digitally transform the way they operate. Most of them were already working on their digital transformation goals, but the pandemic situation forced them to speed it up to the point where they couldn't keep up with the transformation requirements.

Digital transformation is an exhausting process for most companies that had to fight for their survival since the pandemic's outbreak. Most of them had to rethink their cybersecurity strategies, and move to the cloud, says Gary Stevens, a web hosting and IT administrator on Hosting Canada's Web Services Team. "Make sure your websites are hosted on a secure Canadian web hosting platform, educate your employees on how to secure their devices while working remotely, focus on attracting and retaining customers," says Stevens. There's no doubt that 2020 has been a huge year for digital transformation, not only in Canada but around the globe.

What will the changes seen during 2020 mean for digital transformation, especially in the software business, in 2021? Will technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing take on greater importance? Or will they fade away? There has been much discussion about new technologies that might take the lead.

Without a time machine, there is no way to accurately predict what tomorrow will bring. However, when looking at current trends in the software business, it is possible to make an educated guess on what digital transformation trends will dominate in 2021.

1. 5G Technology Will Become Mainstream

Technology related to 5G has been on just about every list that discusses digital transformation for the past few years. It is the technology that promises so much. However, up until now, it has failed to materialize.

Thanks to videoconferencing, remote work and digital collaboration, the need for connectivity and bandwidth has become urgent. The concrete benefits of 5G technology are clearly seen. Everyone is relying more on their tablets, devices, and a myriad of Internet of things devices. Technology related to 5G will be affordable, accessible, and an integral part of digital transformation in 2021.

2. The Hybrid Cloud

Even before the pandemic, businesses had been migrating to the hybrid cloud. It was already set to be a major force in digital transformation for software businesses in 2021. However, the sudden disruptions caused by COVID-19 have highlighted the importance of having an adaptable and agile cloud infrastructure.

Businesses are accelerating their investments in the cloud. Software businesses want to quickly make changes in an uncertain environment. No one wants to have the feeling of helplessness that accompanied the disruption of business in 2020.

3. More Emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning have also been mainstays on lists of digital transformation trends to look out for. In 2021, these technologies seem to be at a point where they can reach their full potential.

AI is allowing for increased connectivity in every aspect of an organization. Increased connectivity means access to and the creation of more data.

The power of this can be seen with many software applications. A simple example is ERP software. When it is AI-enabled, it can organize data and prioritize it, collect it, and structure it. This makes it possible for organizations to manage transactions and take the necessary action to prioritize growth.

4. Increased Emphasis on Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics focuses on using predictive modeling, data mining, and machine learning to look at data and try to predict what the future will bring. Predictive analytics is used in software that organizes maintenance operations. It is helping decision-makers identify equipment issues before they happen.

In 2021, predictive analytics and its accompanying software will play a larger role in other industries. For example, buyer behavior models, materials management, and financial operations will be influenced by predictive analytics.

5. A Hybrid Business Model

It is expected that in 2021, software businesses will adopt a hybrid business model. This is a blend of physical presence, online presence, and decentralization. This is a tweak to the idea of remote working. The idea is that people are not remote but are close to a network. Organizations will be able to connect to cloud computing resources and work jointly to realize their organization's goals.

This is going to require re-examining digital engagement solutions. The solutions that are used now work just fine, but they were primarily designed for an age when everyone worked in the office. The benefit of a hybrid business model is rapid adoption. Technologies such as webinar software solutions are needed that allow open communication and collaboration between teams, individuals, and customers.

For software businesses, this means that 2021 will probably lead to mergers, reorganizations, and acquisitions. Big vendors are going to grow larger. The competition between vendors will become more intense as certain vendors will rise from the pack, creating software and platforms that make use of integrated communication layers.

6. XaaS Model Will Grow Stronger

The X as a service model has become the standard used by many software businesses. The year 2021 will speed up this trend where services delivered will be in the cloud. Customers will be able to virtually access just about everything they need. The Internet of things and artificial intelligence will play a vital role in expanding this service model.

Artificial intelligence as a service will be a major player. There are already several technologies, including speech recognition, data processing, and face recognition, that are becoming viable because of artificial intelligence. AI is at the heart of the framework of cloud computing. Because of this, many IT giants are investing heavily in the concept of artificial intelligence as a service.

7. Increased Emphasis on Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is always a priority. COVID-19 has emphasized the importance of cybersecurity. Cyber criminals have exploited COVID-19 and have attacked businesses worldwide. Since the pandemic began, attacks on banks have increased by over 230 percent. It is expected that in 2021 software makers are going to increase their efforts to make their products and services secure to address the threats that have become apparent in 2020.

Conclusion

The coronavirus pandemic has changed digital transformation. It has made things that were once thought impossible or impractical seem like a good idea. It is likely that this will continue in 2021.

The year 2021 promises to be a big year for the software business. Hopefully, it is one that is filled with stability and financial prosperity. Regardless of how the year plays out, the one certainty is that digital transformation will continue to be a focus of organizations around the planet.

(Disclaimer: Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)

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Scientists Braved the High Arctic to Chase Clouds on History’s Largest Polar Trip – National Audubon Society

The high Arctic is dangerous in the dark of winter. Temperatures drop to 40 degrees. Ice cracks underfoot. Polar bears roam. Yet scientists on the Alfred Wegener Institutes MOSAiC expedition(the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) braved these hazards so they could study the Arctic atmosphere for a full year.

High-Arctic icebreaker missions like this one arent unprecedented. However, MOSAiC collected more and better data, andinvolved more researchers that were more farflung. It had one othercritical difference: All those old expeditions were studying an Arctic that doesnt exist anymore,says expedition co-coordinator Matthew Shupe, at atmospheric physicist with the University of Colorado and NOAA.The Arctic is changing fast, and the ecosystem is changing fast. We need to understand whats happening now.

Todays Arctic is warming two to three times faster than anywhere on Earth, and scientists have urgent questions about why.Clouds may be key. Clouds are one of the leading sources of uncertainty in our models, Shupe says. So in October 2019 the Polarstern icebreaker was locked into the frozen ocean near the North Pole and left to drift as scientists sampled the sea, ice, and atmosphere. The data will yield insights into the Arctics cloud cycle and a sharper picture of climate change everywhere.

Miss Piggy is not your typical weather balloon. Most are one-time-use tools, which carry tiny, data-transmitting instruments through six miles of atmosphere, until they pop. But Miss Piggy, pictured here with technician Jurgen Graeser, is built for survival. The porcine balloon stays tethered to the ground and collects datatemperature, humidity, wind, particles, and morewithin the few thousand feet of atmosphere above the ice known as the surface boundary layer. In winter, this region is turbulent: When ice cracks, exposed seawater emits water vapor and heat that travel from the surface up into the high atmosphere and form clouds. As the Arctic warms, more cracks develop, which means more heat enters the atmosphere. How might this influx affect clouds? Miss Piggy will tell us.

To work in the high Arctic, you need a safe haven: a well-defended ship. Its warm, theres food, water, electricity, and camaraderie, and, crucially, polar bears cannot get in. But on the ice youre exposed, which is why polar bear guards kept watch over the scientists as they worked. When the trained, armed sentries spotted a bear, they evacuated the ice floe by hauling remote staff back to the ship on snowmobiles and sleds, and chased the bears away with flare guns.The strategy worked: The mission had no human-bear encounters all year.

While there were no incidents, the scientists saw plenty of bear visitors.On October 10, 2019, two polar bears came close to the ship and stayed for several minutes exploring the ice camp before they were chased off. Luckily for photographer Esther Horvath, they stuck around long enough for her to capturephotos of the curious animals. A photograph similarto the one below won her a World Press Photo prize.

The ship provided safety, and also served as a scientific platform. Inside a container on the bow, atmospheric scientist Julia Schmale from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology set up a laboratory to analyze aerosol particles. Each minuscule speck of dust, soot, ocean salt, sulfate, ammonia, or microbe is a seed around which water vapor condenses; together these form a cloud.

In most places clouds cool the climate by reflecting incoming sunlight and heat back into space. But in the Arctic, winter clouds warm the region by trapping heat rising from the ocean. Nobody knows how big the effect is, Schmale says, but it might explain the Arctics rapid warmingand help scientists understand climate change far away. Global weather is driven by temperature differences between polar and temperate regions, which means Arctic warming affects everyone. One atmosphere connects every place on Earth, she says. Right now climate models especially lack data from winter months. By filling those gaps, Schmale aims to unpack the cloud mystery.

Beyond the ship, infrastructure developed on the ice floe: 5,300 meters of powerline and 2,500 meters of network cable crawled toward multiple encampments hosting millions of dollars of scientific equipment. Incredibly, these structures were built on a dynamic, ever-shifting ice floe prone to sudden transformation. You cant necessarily tell the floe is moving, NOAAs Shupe says. But if you really slow yourself downclose your eyes and sit thereyou can feel it.While parked in the ice floe with its engines off,Polarsterntraveled miles across the ocean every day and more than 1,000 miles in a full year.

The encampments were never on solid ground. At the atmospheric research camp known as Met City, Shupe and his crew were hoisting the 36-foot-tall tower (pictured above)when he heard a loud noise. I look down and there was a crack in the ice going right under my feet, he says. Luckily the crack froze back over, and the tower sustained no injury. But at all times Met City was on the move as it drifted with the ice. Sometimes it rotated around the shipor threatened to leave altogether. There it is, floating on its own ice floe, Shupe recalls. Met City really took a ride.

To fully understand whats happening in the Arctic air, you have to study the ground. Every week a team drilled into the sea ice to collect 50-plus cores. Then they brought them back to the ship to process samples for dozens of scientists on board and at home. One member of the ice-core team wasJessie Creamean(not pictured), astaff scientist at Colorado State University whostudies how microbes like algae and bacteria produce aerosol particles which then seed clouds. As sea ice melts, the Arctic ecosystem is expected to undergo a shift from hosting ice-residingmicrobes to hosting open-water microbes. Those microbial community changes could then affect cloud formation. Climate change can affect the ecosystem, and then the ecosystem can affect the climate, Creamean says. Its all connected.

Life on a high-Arctic icebreaker required teamwork and trust. Those qualities extended beyond the ice; the hundreds of scientists that took part in MOSAiC throughout the year represent a much larger international community of meteorologists, biologists, physicists, and chemists. For instance, data collected by high-tech sensors (below) measure ice thickness and snow depth on the ground that are used to validate data collected by satellites and used by researchers around the world.

The shared, extreme experience of living onPolarsterncultivated community. The few habitable structuressuch as a Met City tech hut (below), warm enough to shelter computers and scientistsbecame gathering spots. Such sites sparked conversation and collaboration. I was bumping elbows with biologists all day long, says Shupe, a physicist. The connections between atmosphere, ice, and sea, and between physics, chemistry, and biology, became a running theme. The gears start spinning in your head: How are these things linked?

AfterPolarsternreturned to Bremerhaven, Germany, on October 12, 2020, researchers scattered back to 37 countries to pore over data. Theyll eventually link up their own findings with those of friends and colleagues made on this once-in-a-lifetime expedition, and together generate improved models of how climate change is unfurling at the farthest reaches of this planet.

Into the Arctic Ice, The Largest Polar Expedition of All Time, by Esther Horvath, Prestel, 288 pages. Available now here

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AI’s Carbon Footprint Issue Is Too Big To Be Ignored – Analytics India Magazine

A lot has been said about the capabilities of artificial intelligence, from humanoid robots, self-driving cars to speech recognition. However, one aspect of AI that often doesnt get spoken about is its carbon footprint. AI systems consume a lot of power, and resultant of this generate large volumes of carbon emissions that harm the environment and further accelerate climate change.

It is interesting to note the duality of AI in terms of its effect on the environment. On the one hand, it helps in devising solutions that can reduce the effects of climate and ecological change. Some of which include smart grid design, development of low-emission infrastructure, and climate change predictions.

But, on the other hand, AI has a significant carbon footprint that is hard to ignore.

For instance, in a 2019 study, a research team from the University of Massachusetts had analysed several natural language processing training models. The energy consumed by these models was converted into carbon emissions and electricity cost. It was then found that training an AI language-processing system generates an astounding 1,400 pounds (635 kg) of emission. The study further noticed that this number can even reach up to 78,000 pounds (over 35,000 kg) depending on the scale of the AI experiment and the source of power used. This is equivalent to 125 round trip flights between New York and Beijing.

Notably, the centre of the whole Timnit Gebru-Google controversy is also a study titled, On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? This paper, co-authored by Gebru raised questions about AI language models being too big, and whether tech companies are doing enough to reduce the arising potential risk. Apart from shining light on how such models perpetually create abusive languages, hate speeches, stereotypes, and other microaggressions towards specific communities, the paper also spoke of the AIs carbon footprint and how it disproportionately affects the marginalised communities, much more than any other group of people.

The paper pointed out that the number of resources required to build and sustain such large models only benefitting the large corporations and wealthy organisations, but the resulting repercussions of climate change were borne by the marginalised communities. It is past time for researchers to prioritise energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources, the paper said.

This OpenAI graph also shows how since 2012, the amount of computing power in training some of the largest models such as AlphaZero has been increasing exponentially with a 3.4 month doubling time. This is higher than Moores law two-year doubling period.

Credit: OpenAI

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To address this issue, in September 2019, employees of tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter, have joined the brimming worldwide march against climate change and demanded from their employers to issue an assurance towards reducing emissions to zero by 2030. This would require them to cut contracts with fossil fuel companies as well as stop the exploitation of climate refugees. In a very strong-worded demand that called out Techs dirty role in climate change, the coalition had written that the tech industry has a massive carbon footprint, often obscured behind jargon like cloud computing or bitcoin mining, along with depictions of code and automation as abstract and immaterial.

Considering the growing conversation around climate change, a movement called Green AI was also started by the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence through their research. This paper proposed undertaking AI research that yields desired results but without increasing computational cost, and in some cases, even reducing it. As per the authors of this paper, the goal should be to make AI greener and inclusive, as opposed to Red AI that currently dominates the research industry. Red AI has been referred to the research practices that use massive computational power to obtain state-of-the-art results in terms of accuracy and efficiency.

In a 2019 paper, co-founders of AI Now Institute, Roel Dobbe and Meredith Whittaker, gave seven recommendations that could help draft a tech-aware climate policy and climate-aware tech policy. They included

There is a lot to be done on recognising, understanding, and acting against the implications of AI carbon footprint. An ideal situation would be bigger tech companies to take the first step in the direction for others to follow.

I am a journalist with a postgraduate degree in computer network engineering. When not reading or writing, one can find me doodling away to my hearts content.

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Cobb Schools receives grant for computer science teacher training – The Catoosa County News

Cobb County School District is getting $25,000 in state grant money for computer science teacher training.

The Georgia Department of Education announced Monday that Cobb Schools was one of 30 school systems receiving a total of $645,000 to help build capacity for computer science education.

The department awarded the first computer science grants last year, and will distribute grant money annually as long as there is allocated funding for it, Meghan Frick, spokesperson for GaDOE, told the MDJ.

According to the state education department, even though computer science is a high-demand career, there are currently 403 credentialed computer science teachers and 1,000 middle and high schools in Georgia, up from 250 teachers in 2019. The grant money will pay for teachers professional learning, including credential programs.

These grants are another great step forward in ensuring Georgia becomes the Technology Capital of the East Coast, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said in a statement. Just recently, the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, which is spearheading our effort to make Georgia the Tech Capital of the East Coast, designated STEM K-12 education as one of its top priorities for additional growth. I want to thank the Department of Education and Superintendent Richard Woods for continuing this critical program, which helps build a strong educational foundation for Georgias children.

Its our job as educators to prepare students not for the world of today, but for the world of tomorrow, Superintendent Woods said. Children in public schools today need to be equipped to build successful lives in the future. Focusing on computer science as an essential K-12 discipline ensures students are prepared not just with technical skills but with experience in problem-solving and real-world thinking that will serve them well in any career they choose.

School districts applied for the grants and received varying amounts, according to GaDOE. Priority was given to school systems serving highly impoverished and/or rural communities.

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St. Albans City School kids were ‘on the case’ for Computer Science Week. What mystery did they solve? – St. Albans Messenger

ST. ALBANS Theres a mystery at St. Albans City School and Detective Botley Blockly is on the case!

To celebrate Computer Science Week, St. Albans City School has extended their annual Day of Code event to encompass the entire month of December. As part of the experience, students were visited by two interesting characters: Det. Botley Blockly and the Rankin-Bot 3000. Through a video clue, students learned the mysterious Rankin-Bot had stolen a prized possession of STEAM teacher Mrs. Rankin (no relation, honest!), leaving behind only directional puzzle pieces as evidence of the crime.

Mrs. Rankin quickly turned to Det. Blockly for assistance, but the case proved to be too much of a challenge even for the talented Detective. She sent out a distress call to all City School students asking for their help in tracking down the stolen item. To do this, the students were given a map to follow. In order to navigate the map, they needed to use the directional clues left behind by the Rankin-Bot. Thinking like programmers, the students navigated their way through the map to uncover more clues (in the form of video clips of the world-famous Detective), to ultimately track down the missing item and save the day!

The teachers in charge of this production are Grace Borst and Darcie Rankin. Both are dedicated to teaching kids STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) and helping creative minds develop skills for personal growth and success now and in the future. The students of City School seemed to love the thrill of the hunt and were eager to email Det. Blockly with their proposed solutions. All in all, a lot of fun (and learning!) was had by all in an event that brought a bit of normalcy to an otherwise challenging year. The students cant wait to welcome Det. Blockly back to school, and after a friendly chat, the Rankin-Bot has been invited back as well.

If theres one thing thats certain, theres no case too tricky for the kids at City School and their incredible programming skills.

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Top MIT research stories of 2020 – MIT News

Although 2020 has been a year most of us would prefer to forget, it still featured a number of research breakthroughs worth celebrating. Despite the new challenges brought on by Covid-19 and sometimes because of them MITs community achieved important milestones on the frontiers of science and engineering.

The following 10 research-related stories published in the previous 12 months received top views onMIT News. (Weve also rounded up the years top MIT community-related stories.)

10. How quarantines impact Covid-19s spread. A team of MIT engineers developed a model that uses data from the Covid-19 pandemic in conjunction with a neural network to determine the efficacy of quarantine measures and better predict the spread of the virus. The researchers say their model is the first to have integrated machine learning with epidemiology.

9. A flat fisheye lens. Engineers at MIT and elsewhere designed the first flat lens that can produce crisp, 180-degree panoramic images similar to those produced by the curved glass of traditional fisheye lenses. The design consists of a single flat, millimeter-thin piece of glass covered on one side with tiny structures that precisely scatter incoming light to produce panoramic images.

8. Blocking coronaviruses ability to enter human cells. MIT chemists designed a drug candidate that can bind to the viral protein coronaviruses use to enter human cells, potentially disarming it. The potential drug is a short protein fragment, or peptide, that mimics a protein found on the surface of human cells.

7. Why motivation to learn declines with age. MIT neuroscientists found that aging negatively affects a brain circuit critical for maintaining motivation to learn new things and engage in everyday activities. They also showed they could boost older mices motivation to engage in certain learning activities by reactivating this circuit.

6. A black holes corona plays peekaboo. In a first, astronomers at MIT and elsewhere watched a supermassive black holes corona the ring of high-energy particles that encircles a black holes horizon disappear and then reappear. Although the cause of the transformation is unclear, the researchers guess it may have been caused by a star caught in the black holes gravitational pull.

5. Simple, solar-powered water desalination. Researchers at MIT and in China developed a completely passive, solar-powered water desalination system that achieves a new level of efficiency in turning seawater into fresh, potable water using the energy of sunlight. The system could provide more than 1.5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of solar collecting area.

4. Model identifies a powerful new antibiotic. An MIT-developed deep learning model identified a new drug compound capable of killing many species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In lab tests, the compound killed many of the worlds most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics.

3. Deploying an open-source, low-cost ventilator. A team including MIT engineers, physicians, and computer scientists designed an inexpensive, open-source ventilator to address a global shortage of the life-saving machines brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. The teams ventilator can be produced using common materials to enable rapid deployment. The team also published details on their website to facilitate parallel efforts by other experts.

2. A signature of life on Venus. Astronomers from MIT and elsewhere found evidence of phosphine, a gas associated with living organisms, in the habitable region of Venus atmosphere. If their observation is indeed associated with life, it must be some sort of aerial life-form in Venus clouds, the team concluded.

1. Covid-19 detection through cough recordings. MIT researchers trained an artificial intelligence model to distinguish asymptomatic people infected with Covid-19 from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings. In experiments, the model accurately identified 98.5 percent of participants who were confirmed to have Covid-19, based on the recordings they submitted.

In case you missed it

Additional top research stories of 2020 include a study of economic recovery after the 1918 flu pandemic; a look at the blue shift and vote-counting in presidential elections; a progress report on the new MIT-designed fusion experiment; a prototype for a reusable silicone rubber face mask; and an answer to why shaving dulls even the sharpest of razors.

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How Yale economists are informing India’s COVID-19 response – Yale News

A Yale teams research into the COVID-19 pandemics effects on Indias most vulnerable populations, including urban laborers who lost their jobs and returned to the countryside, is providing policymakers the data they need to address the crisis.

Led by two Yale economists Rohini Pande, director of theEconomic Growth Center(EGC), and Charity Troyer Moore, director for South Asia economics research atthe MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies the project informed public policy in real time and highlights the role Yale undergraduates are playing in studying the pandemics economic fallout in the United States and internationally.

Before the pandemic, Pande and Troyer Moores research team had ongoing projects in two Indian states in partnership with Inclusion Economics India, a research group based at Krea University. Once COVID-19 spread to India, their government counterparts in both states identified a need for data concerning the influx of migrant workers from Indias cities following a nationwide lockdown on March 24, 2020, including information on the effectiveness of efforts to support, track, and manage a network of migrant quarantine centers.

The most economically vulnerable groups were going to be hit hardest, both on the health front but also from the economic effects of lockdown, said Pande,the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics. Many migrants were returning and being located in quarantine centers, but policymakers had no sense for how well these facilities were functioning.

To assist local policymakers, the research team began conducting large-scale surveys of migrants but needed help analyzing and presenting large amounts of data quickly in a way policymakers could easily digest.

At the time, the Yale administration was connecting students whose summer internships had been interrupted by the pandemic with researchers who were seeking to staff COVID-related projects.Pandespoke on a virtual panel about such research opportunities in social science, co-hosted by theFactuly of Arts and Sciences Division of Social Science, theInstitution for Social and Policy Studies(ISPS), and theTobin Center for Economic Policy.

The response was very positive, said Pande. We went in anticipating interest from two or three students, but had over 50 students respond. They hired nine Yale undergrads, mostly economics and computer science majors.

It was exciting to get students involved in cutting-edge research with broader relevance to the world, Troyer Moore said. It was their chance to participate in the global COVID-19 response.

From April to June, the team surveyed nearly 6,000 urban migrants who had returned to their rural homes about their circumstances and wellbeing: their food security, ability to find work, and access to government benefits. Since in-person interviews were not possible during the pandemic, surveys were conducted by phone.

Indias lockdown had been particularly challenging on urban migrants. Unable to work and lacking savings to make ends meet, many returned to their rural homes often walking long distances because air and rail travel had been suspended. Once home, few had job prospects, and many faced discrimination, harassment, and even violence from their neighbors, who worried they might be carrying the virus. With uncertain economic futures, many migrant workers households were dependent on government relief to survive.

The teams research illustrated just how vulnerable migrants were, said Troyer Moore, who described the findings in a virtual panel discussion, Migration in Crisis, which was part of the South Asia Development Dialogues hosted by EGC and the South Asia Studies Council at Yale on November 13. Initially, many migrants found agricultural jobs during the lockdown, which coincided with a season of high agricultural work. But after this work ended, over 75% of migrants reported very significant financial difficulties and over 60% reported reducing consumption during the previous month. They were neither tied to the city, nor to the rural areas, Troyer Moore said.

The research team also found that women and members of Indias historically disadvantaged castes had worse experiences across most of the outcomes being tracked. For example, the percentage of marginalized caste members reporting reduced consumption was 8.5 percentage points higher than the members of other castes, and the percentage of women reporting reduced consumption was 12 percentage points higher than men.

A key goal of the summer project was to help local officials manage migrant quarantine centers. Due to staff and data shortages, the local government lacked an effective way to monitor the centers, identify issues being faced by migrants, or manage resources.

Very often what policymakers struggle with even in the short term is any sense from the data of where the problem is the most significant, said Pande. On a daily basis, government officials need to understand what issues are happening where and how to respond to them.

Combining government data with real-time survey responses, the team built a data dashboard tracking details like the number of migrants arriving at each center and the adequacy of facilities. With graphs and tables that could be filtered and sorted, the data dashboard provided policymakers with a rapid feedback loop and a critical crisis-response tool.

It was exciting to be there as it happened. ... Our work helped inform policymakers about what sorts of actions they needed to take.

Michael Chang 21

It was exciting to be there as it happened, said Michael Chang 21, who is majoring in the interdepartmental Computing and the Arts program and plans to pursue a career in data science. The dashboard helped ministers and officials get a much better idea about where they needed to send resources to help migrant workers. Our work helped inform policymakers about what sorts of actions they needed to take.

With nearly10 million cases, India now has the worlds second-worst COVID-19 outbreak behind the United States. But as this research project underscores, the challenges of managing a pandemic are very different in a country like India, where extreme poverty is widespread, healthcare systems are weak, and high population density makes social distancing difficult.

One of the projects most significant findings was that while social safety nets were critical to migrant wellbeing, state capacity often limited its reach. As the COVID-19 crisis evolves, the Yale teams research is helping Indian officials weigh policy responses to strengthen safety nets and provide migrants long-term job opportunities.

Amid the many challenges, there may be opportunities, said Troyer Moore. Migrants often have useful skills from their urban work experience, which could be harnessed for rural development or small-business entrepreneurship. Research findings about the disproportionate hardships faced by women and lower-caste members could also provide impetus for larger-scale social change.

COVID-19 is a major juncture, said Troyer Moore. The hard work will not wrap up when the pandemic ends. Getting started with the right type of data collection now is going to help push policy in the right direction.

The India project fits into EGC and the MacMillan Centers broader research agenda on how COVID-19 is affecting the global poor, particularly women and children, and how developing countries can design effective policies to support poor communities during and after COVID-19. The research on Indias migrant workers, for instance, could offer lessons to help governments prepare for the impacts of climate change, which is expected to create millions of migrants.

For Chang, his summer internship convinced him about the power and potential of data to create positive change in the world.

Data science demystifies the unknown, he said. In its raw form, data is just waiting for someone to mold, filter, and channel it into something useful.

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