Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

99X Technology combats COVID-19 digitally in Sri Lanka and Scandinavi­a

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Top Sri Lankan product engineerin­g company 99X Technology, during the current global lockdown, 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 COVID19 WHO informatio­n chatbot on Facebook Messenger, which was delivered in 24 hours. The service is available to all Sri Lankans in Sinhala, Tamil and English languages, giving real- time updates sourced from the Health Promotion Bureau of Sri Lanka and World Health Organisati­on 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

A media release issued by the company quoted Robert Juhkam, Resident Representa­tive of UNDP in Sri Lanka, as saying that: “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 p rovide 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 COVID-19. Build 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.

Kjetil Odin Johnsen, CEO and Founder, Sureway commented: “As the COVID-19 infection began to take hold, we compiled a list of COVID-19 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 prefilled 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 general public being empowered with important informatio­n about COVID-19 and strengthen­ed companies with need-to-know data on business continuity, the release said.

Headquarte­red in Sri Lanka, 99X Technology is a product engineerin­g company co-creating well-engineered, innovative digital products.

Headquarte­red in Sri Lanka, 99X Technology is a product engineerin­g company co-creating well-engineered, innovative digital products.

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