Technology Amid COVID | Bill Mew | Engati CX

In this episode of Engati Engage, Bill Mew, the founder of The Crisis Team chats with us about the use of technology amid COVID.

Bill Mew is one of the world’s top campaigners for digital ethics and founder of The Crisis Team — a digital era crisis management firm, which works alongside the UK’s top cyberlaw experts. One of the world’s top social influencers, Bill focuses on striking the right balance between digital transformation ‘changing the world’ and digital ethics ‘doing the right thing’ (including privacy, security, etc). He has been in great demand, appearing widely in the press and as frequently as once a week on broadcast TV and Radio talking about the need for meaningful protection, as well as the need to maximize the overall economic and social benefit from technology.

Tech Amid Covid — An interview with Bill Mew

Could you share your thoughts on digital transformation ‘changing the world’ and digital ethics ‘doing the right thing’ and how do they interject?

Currently, according to Bill, there appears to be a trade-off between privacy and tracking and tracing. There have been some instances where companies such as Facebook have made a few mistakes, where they’ve tripped up and got it wrong. But Bill is not a believer in privacy for privacy’s sake.

We need meaningful protection but we need to balance that with innovation. And seeking to use technology to maximize economic and social value.

There’s so much that tech can achieve. And there’s an obvious social value in this. It allows us to crack down on the epidemic and to keep people safe and alive. But at the same time, a lot of the information made available is going to be personal. It’s our health and location data. One of the concerns is that there’s going to be too much of a tradeoff in privacy.

But every implementation and environment is going to have to strike some balance in maximizing innovation and protecting us all.

Do you believe the current pandemic will accelerate organizations moving to the cloud? What are the key factors to consider while evaluating such an acceleration?

We are currently embarking on a journey to digital transformation. It’s helping us cope with the current pandemic in a better way. There are an abundance of guides sharing how to best work from home and it involves all sorts of new technologies. It’s incredible.

There’s a lesson to be learnt here however. It’s all about crisis preparation. Organizations that have incorporated the Cloud have been far better able to cope with this pandemic. Being on the Cloud allowed companies to have access to information anywhere.

However, digital transformation is not a one-off thing. It’s not just about migrating to the Cloud, it’s a culture. It’s a progression that we all continually worked at. And it’s about risk. Many organisations ignored this and now they’re suffering. Perhaps if we prepared better, the effects of the pandemic may not have affected us so much. But it has taught us that we now have to shift our focus to preparing for the next threat, or the Return on Risk. We need to focus on security for every organization, and every sector within. And cloud will be the tool to leverage this shift. It’s all about risk awareness and risk appetite.

Tech Amid Covid — A Spotify podcast with Bill Mew

The rest of our interview discusses Fintech and its adoption to automation and AI. What is it that is slowing its adoption? And what acts as a blocker? We also discuss what top security imperatives organizations must face and how to address them. How AI can assist in cybersecurity and digital ethics, as well as his thoughts on the RAPTOR Methodology.

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Engati CX

We hope we’ve helped learn about the use of tech amid COVID. Engati CX will be back with a new expert in a new episode soon. Stay tuned.

More from Engati CX

Now that you’ve gained some insights on Tech amid Covid, it’s time to learn about Fintech: from Legacy to Innovation. Check out our interview with April Rudin.