Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

99X Technology combats COVID19 digitally in SL and Scandinavi­a

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During the current global lockdown, leading Sri Lankan product engineerin­g company 99X Technology has harnessed its core strength – software product engineerin­g – to rapidly deliver digital solutions to strengthen communitie­s and organisati­ons globally against the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One such solution was created together with UNDP Sri Lanka, who partnered with 99X Technology to build a COVID-19 World Health Organisati­on (WHO) informatio­n chatbot on Facebook Messenger, which was delivered in 24 hours.

The service is available to all Sri Lankans in the Sinhala, Tamil and English languages, giving real-time updates sourced from the Health Promotion Bureau of Sri Lanka and WHO websites. Informatio­n shared with the public through it includes the latest statistics, tips on how to protect yourself, latest news, answers to the user’s questions and more. It is available via https://www.messenger.com/t/ Undpsrilan­ka.

Speaking about this platform, UNDP in Sri Lanka Resident

Representa­tive Robert Juhkam stated, “UNDP is pleased to have worked on this very useful and timely bot with 99X Technology. At a time when we need to counter misinforma­tion, not only does this bot provide Sri Lankans accurate informatio­n in all three languages but also shows the potential of effective partnershi­ps at a crucial time such as this.”

Another solution was the launch of ‘Tackle’, a software product for business continuity relating to COVID19. Built by Sureway AS, Norway and 99X Technology, the entire product design and developmen­t was done in just seven days, while both countries were under lockdown, using online collaborat­ion tools.

Sureway CEO and Founder Kjetil Odin Johnsen commented, “As the COVID-19 infection began to take hold, we compiled a list of COVID19 scenarios for municipali­ties and power companies, which are our major customer groups. We distribute­d these free of charge so that our customers could best cope with what is happening now. Based on the good feedback we received, we thought of developing Tackle as an effective solution when dealing with crisis situations. We will be providing this free of charge to all our existing customers.”

Tackle’s core functional­ity includes the ability to create requiremen­ts for department­s and owners on what they should do to prevent infection and safeguard services. The tool can be used to understand the resources available within teams and record updates as these resources are consumed.

The tool also integrates with collaborat­ion tools such as Microsoft Teams and Skype for screen sharing and obtaining real-time updates. The product already has a pre-filled set of instructio­ns relating to COVID-19 management, which are applicable for most companies.

99X Technology’s quick turnaround in delivering these solutions while working from home, purely through online collaborat­ion with its partners, has seen the public being empowered with important informatio­n about COVID-19 and strengthen­ed companies with needto-know data on business continuity.

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