Cairo Angels, a global network of angel investors focused on supporting startup opportunities in Egypt, the Middle East and Africa, is delighted to announce its top finalists who will move to the final round and pitch their solution virtually on Wednesday at 6:00 PM CT.

Finalist Startups are: 

• Kofoof under iNet.works, founded by Mohammad AboAli, iNet.works is a software company that specializes in business software development that helps worldwide businesses succeed. 

- Markazzy, founded by Omar Nasser, the first platform in Egypt that helps homeowners find, choose and use home improvement products with ease and convenience. 

- NIoTEK, founded by Anas Naguib, NIoTEK is a startup that joins hardware and Software and apply them in Internet of Things (IoT) to help companies make better. 

- Tactful AI, founded by Mohamed Elmasry, Tactful is AI-powered and data-centric customer engagement technology. Unlike traditional contact center and helpdesk solutions that only optimize the workload, Tactful uses AI and real-time analytics to provide 360-view of the customer and empower customer care agents to deliver personalized and rewarding experience across digital platforms.

The initiative was launched by Mr. Ayman Ashour, Advisory Board Member at The Cairo Angels has decided to support the campaign  #نحنا في ضهرك ("We’ve Got Your Back") one week ago with EGP 100,000, which aims at helping elderly or vulnerable people living alone complete their shopping and errands. lowering their risk of infection from the novel coronavirus.

The network is seeking to establish a secure and updated database for volunteers, whose identity can be verified through social media accounts and ID cards, with the inclusion of reviews.

Zeina Mandour, General Manager at The Cairo Angels said “We are launching a series of activities to support startups in MENA region.“ 

Also Zeina highlighted that Cairo Angels believes in the importance of solidarity with the most vulnerable and the idea of this campaign is to bring the ingenuity of startups, technology for a societal support and solidarity effort at this time of global crisis. 

Finally she mentioned “We at Cairo Angels are grateful for the support of our partners Mayday and Microsoft who have agreed to provide additional important awards to the ultimate winner of the competition.“ 

The winner will be announced on Thursday after the voting is done and will start working directly with The Cairo Angels team who will provide mentorship and support for his solution besides the funding.

source: magnitt

   The Digital Economy is no longer a just a concept, but rather an operational reality for more and more firms, research firm IDC told its attendees at its annual Directions conference this week. In a variety of presentations, analysts discussed how technology is impacting enterprises and the overall economy, with the research firm predicting that within three years, more than half of global GDP will be driven by "digitally transformed" enterprises.

Because of concerns about the coronavirus, the conference was held online, and IDC President Crawford Del Prete said the group now expects that IT growth in 2020 will probably end up at 2.5 to 3 percent, a couple points lower than the firm was expecting before the virus outbreak.

Del Prete said the digital economy is increasingly being driven by more powerful platforms, with ecosystems gaining lots of developers, as well as buy-in from major enterprises. As a result, he said innovation has accelerated, particularly the ability to target the specific needs of customers.

We are moving to a more data driven world, but success involves transforming data into insights. Customers today expect engagement, personalization and simplicity, and it is incumbent among suppliers to provide these capabilities.

He described the "fast five" big trends of today's digital economy.

AI is everywhere, with the technologies being incorporated into more and more products. Everyone is a developer, with more people able to create applications and more applications being created today than ever.

The cloud is no long seen as a location, but rather as a platform, which includes edge devices and needs to be managed. Trust now includes more than just security. Customers want to work with you to create automated solutions as quickly as possible.

Riffing off the common comment that "data is the new oil," he said, "Data will no longer be viewed as 'oil,' but as water. It is essential for life but needs to be accessible and clean."

For the full text, please read:

source: uk.pcmag

From medical consultations to free services, local startups become more agile in light of crisis

More startups and entrepreneurship stakeholders have started to adapt and enhance their services in light of the COVID-19 - known as the “coronavirus” - spread, in an aim to help customers and partners get through this phase safely and healthy.

Highlights from the ecosystem:

• The Cairo Angels seeks solutions for “We’ve got your back” initiative with EGP 100,000

Angel investment network The Cairo Angels is supporting the #احنا_في_ضهرك (“We’ve got your back”) initiative with EGP 100,000, which aims at helping elderly or vulnerable people living alone complete their shopping and errands.

The network is seeking to establish a secure and updated database for volunteers, whose identity can be verified through social media accounts and ID cards, with the inclusion of reviews.

Hence, existing startups and/or startup founders are needed to develop the product and launch it within one week. Applications are accepted until March 25th, 2020.

• Taskty offers sanitization services for companies, factories

Home improvement website Taskty built teams to offer sanitization services for companies and factories alike at cheap prices, following the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Egyptian Ministry of Health. Additionally, Taskty is conducting phone training with the cleaners, technicians and workers that are registered on their website on how to best keep themselves and their customers safe.

• estshara launches “Salamet Masr” initiative

Medical consultation platform estshara launched the Salamet Masr initiative to help fight COVID-19, by providing free medical consultations on the coronavirus through its application by consulting a doctor via a voice call or text chat.

Moreover, the app spreads awareness and educates the community about the symptoms and methods of preventing the disease.

Users can access the free consultations by entering the Promocode “freedoc” in the estshara application, available until March 31, 2020. estshara is a platform that provides online healthcare consultations, aiming to make healthcare services accessible to everyone in the MENA region.

• WideBotbuilds free Arabic-speaking chatbots for businesses

Arabic chatbot company WideBot is offering three months of bot building for free on their platform, so that businesses can completely shift their communication with other brands, employees and customers online. Using the Promocode “BeSafe” allows interested businesses and startups to set up their chatbots, and thus, reduce face-to-face interactions. Widebot is the first Arabic-focused bot-builder platform, which does not require coding and uses AI to maximize conversions and increase loyalty.

• TakeStep offers free sessions, launches COVID-19 symptom-checker with Al-Tibbi

Egyptian healthcare startup TakeStep now offers startups and their families free psychiatric sessions in order to help them cope with the psychological impact of the COVID-19 spread worldwide. Psychologists are coining the term “corona phobia” to describe how people are affected by the panic and fear that comes along with the virus-spread. This could include anxiety, depression, as well as severe fear of germs. Additionally, TakeStep partnered with Al-Tibbi to launch a free symptom-checker for the coronavirus, in which website visitors can enter the symptoms they feel, and be diagnosed either positive or negative for COVID-19.

• Brainy Squad launches free online consultations for businesses

Creative agency Brainy Squad launched free online consultation sessions to support businesses facing economic consequences of the spread of COVID-19.

These sessions provide expertise to help businesses adopt the best digital transformation tactics to ensure continuity and growth under the current conditions. Brainy Squad is a creative one-stop-shop for businesses’ digital and creative needs.

• Breadfast waives delivery fees, adds more products for customers’ convenience

Online native grocery application Breadfast added more commodities to its offering at their customers’ convenience, in support of the ''stay at home'' safety measures.

These products include fruits, vegetables, groceries, hand sanitizers and face masks. Additionally, the company applied special safety standards at all stages of production, packaging, and delivery, while customers can leave a note to have their order left at the door.

Breadfast also waived all delivery fees until the end of the month in support of customers’ circumstances during the current times.

Breadfast is an online grocery application that produces fresh bakeries using products like eggs and flour also produced by Breadfast, in addition to providing other groceries delivered daily to their customers’ doorstep.

source: zawya

Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and Saudi Telecom Ventures (STV) have co-led an investment in KSA-based Nana, one of Saudi Arabia’s fastest growing technology start up.

Other investors in the round included existing investors Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), Watar Partners and Wamda Capital. MEVP had earlier invested in Nana in 2019.

Nana is an online grocery platform that currently serves 14 cities across the Kingdom.

The marketplace platform powers hypermarkets and helps them showcase their inventory to millions of Nana users.

Buyers enjoy the luxury of sitting at home while a shopper prepares the basket and hands it to a delivery man to deliver the order.

The technology allows users to get a constant overview of the progress during the order and nana users love the brand for the flawless experience.

“We have spent the past year and a half to remove the bottlenecks in everyday grocery buying for our users.

There is a long way to go, and with investors such as MEVP and STV, we are confident of being Saudi’s leading consumer app.” said Sami Alhelwah, Founder & CEO of Nana.

“This round will enable us to expand in KSA and outside. It will allow us to focus on further improving our stellar customer experience and develop technology solutions to support our partner's growth and development.” Sami added.

Nana has tripled its turnover during the past year and partnerships with Carrefour, Panda, Spar, Farm Superstores, Manuel and many others has helped Nana offer the widest possible range of consumer packaged goods (CPG) all over Saudi. 

Commenting on the deal, Ankit Sarwahi from MEVP said “Nana keeps ticking all the boxes of a rapidly growing tech start-up.

We are delighted with the dynamism of the Founders and the frantic pace at which the Company is capturing market share.

We stay committed to and aligned with Nana’s mission of moving a substantial chunk of grocery from offline to an online environment and we are excited to see the Company walk into its next phase of expansion on the back of this fund raise.”

For Saudi Telecom Ventures (STV) this is yet another commitment to the Saudi tech ecosystem. Ahmad Alshammari, Principal at STV, added: “Online grocery penetration in Saudi Arabia has the potential to grow 18 times to reach global rates.

The opportunity to transform the second-highest consumer spending bucket is large and significant. We’re very excited to back the vision of Sami and the team at Nana; they have managed to build an intuitive product, a reliable operation, and developed valuable partnerships.

In a very short time span, Nana has emerged as the market leader in Saudi Arabia and is best-positioned to capture the greater MENA market.”

Nana is constantly adding hypermarkets partners as well as boutique food stores to its repertoire. The Company aims to deliver a hundred thousand orders every month to Saudi-based buyers and aims to reach this milestone by the end of 2020.

source: magnitt

Elmenus, the Egyptian startup that is fast-becoming a leader in the food discovery, ordering, and delivery sector, has secured USD 8 Mn in funding in a Series B round co-led by UAE-based VC fund, Global Ventures, and Egypt’s Algebra Ventures.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Amir Allam, and having previously raised USD 1.5 Mn in Series A funding from Algebra Ventures in 2017, Elmenus has achieved rapid success.

Since its founding, the startup has launched online ordering operations and, more recently, its own fleet service while also scaling from 20 to 200 employees, attracting top-tier talent, experiencing double-digit growth monthly, and eliminating that “What to eat today” concern for many people.

“We are incredibly excited to announce Global Ventures’ investment in a leading food-tech startup such as Elmenus, and look forward to working closely with the team in terms of driving further value creation opportunities that result in continued growth,” states Basil Moftah, General Partner at Global Ventures. 

With its foundation of loyal users built via a comprehensive platform targeted to enable users to discover and order food online (app and website), elmenus has grown rapidly within the Egyptian market.

The startup claims to have onboarded over 8,000 restaurants and while serving approximately 1.2 million monthly active users in a short period. And this would have had a bearing on the Series B raise.

“With their first raise of USD 1.5 Mn, Elmenus proved our original investment thesis that a strong local player with a broader offering can have disproportionate achievement. The company has unique efficiencies and this round could be enough to secure its leadership in the rapidly growing digital market in Egypt.”, says Ziad Mokhtar, Managing Partner at Algebra Ventures.

The latest funding round also drew participation from Tarek Sakr and Hamad Al Homaizi, who are both prominent entrepreneurs most notable for having partially exited 4Sale, the leading Kuwait-based classifieds platform to NBK Capital last year.

The duo would be hoping to profit off of what is fast-becoming the leading food-tech startup in Egypt with a focus on personalizing food recommendations to users at the dish-level through digitized restaurant menus, reviews, and photos via its online food discovery and ordering platform.

“We believe our success as a startup is a combination of innovatively solving the right user problems, great team, and laser-focused execution. We have been able to grow the market in Egypt and accomplish great milestones very efficiently, we are excited about what we will do with this additional funding and the support of Global Ventures coming on board as we continue to scale across Egypt and help millions of more users to discover and order the food they will love,” states Amir Allam, Founder of Elmenus.

Egypt’s food discovery/ordering/delivery scene appears to be one of the most active on the African continent with a number of vibrant players including Uber Eats, Carriage, and Otlob.

With the latest investment, Elmenus seems to be strengthening its grip on a market that recently lost one of its bigger players in Glovo.

source: weetracker

Coronavirus! Yes, it's a serious situation, and yes, it deserves your vigilance and attention.

But the constant spring of information, precautions and warnings, whether it's straight from the CDC or some recirculated, dubiously-sourced post on Facebook, can take a real toll on your mental health.

When does caution become overreaction? When does staying informed cross the line into, well, too much information?

The good news is, there is a happy medium between willfully ignoring the biggest story in the world right now, and going into a full-on panic.

Here are some tips. Think of it like hand-washing and social distancing, but for your brain.

Pare down your sources of information

"There is a ton of information out there. The challenge is trying to determine which information is accurate." says Lynn Bufka, Associate Executive Director for Research and Policy at the American Psychological Association. She suggests taking control of your intake through the following steps:

• Find a few sources you trust and stick with them. Choose one national or international source like the CDC, and another local nor national source so you can know what's going on in your community.
• Limit the frequency of your updates.Things may be changing rapidly, but that doesn't mean you need to hang on every update. Think of it this way: If there is a tornado coming your way, you need information as soon as possible. The coronavirus is not a tornado. This may mean disabling constant notifications from news sites or social media.
• Know when to walk away. "Try to get used to not knowing every little thing, and feeling okay with uncertainty," says Bufka.
• She recommends getting your phone off your person so you're not tempted to check it. Bufka says she leaves her phone on a charging station when she gets home so it's not constantly with her, beckoning with new information.
• Practice social media self discipline.No, it's not easy to limit time on social media.
• But chances are, the churn of information and commentary you get from friends and acquaintances on your Facebook feed is more incessant than actual updates from news or health organizations. Bufka recommends uninstalling social media apps so it's harder to get to the content, or using tools to limit your aimless scrolling.

Name your fears

A pandemic is a rather abstract villain, so it may help to sit down and really consider what specific threats worry you. Do you think you will catch the coronavirus and die? "The fear of death taps into one of our core existential fears," says Bufka. "But you have to think about what your fear is, and how realistic it is." Consider your personal risk and how likely it is that you will actually come in contact with the virus.

And, even if your greatest fear is realized and you or someone you love does fall ill, you may not have really thought about what comes next. Yes, you may get it. Yes, you may need treatment. But in all likelihood, hope is still not lost. "We tend to overestimate the likelihood of something happening, and we tend to underestimate our capacity to deal with it," Bufka says.

Of course, you could have other, more practical fears. "Some people may worry about what would happen if they were moved into self quarantine, or if they're not able to work. They're wondering if they would have access to groceries or childcare," says Bufka. "Again, people have greater abilities to manage hardships than they think they do. Think about a plan. Consider options if you can't telework. Do you have savings? Do you have support?" Being prepared for your fears will help keep them in scale.

Think outside yourself

Since action can allay our anxieties, you may want to also consider what you can do to help others who may be more affected by the outbreak than you. Service workers, medical workers, hourly workers and people in the restaurant or entertainment industries may have their livelihoods paralyzed or have to put themselves in disproportionate danger. "It will be important for us as communities to think about how to support these individuals whose lives are going to be disrupted," Bufka says. "How can we even this burden and support those who have less options?"

After all, most of the precautions put in place to help stall the spread of the virus aren't just for you, as an individual. They're intended to keep entire communities and vulnerable demographics safe. Doing the same with your own time and care can empower you to see the real effects of the situation, rather than your abstract fears.

Seek support, but do it wisely

People are going to talk. But if you want to run to a friend to discuss the latest outbreak cluster or your family's contingency plans, try not to create an echo chamber. "If you are overwhelmed, don't necessarily go to someone who has a similar level of fear," Bufka says. "Seek out someone who is handling it differently, who can check you on your anxiety and provide some advice."

If you can't seem to get a handle on your thoughts, professional help can be an option. "It doesn't need to be a long-term thing," Bufka says. "It means you can get some guidance for this specific situation."

Pay attention to your basic needs

In short, don't get so wrapped up in thinking about the coronavirus that you forget the essential, healthy practices that affect your wellbeing every day. "In times of stress, we tend to minimize the importance of our foundation when we really should be paying more attention to it," Bufka says. Make sure you are:

• Getting adequate sleep
• Keeping up with proper nutrition
• Getting outside as much a possible
• Engaging in regular physical activity

Practicing mindfulness, meditation, yoga or other forms of self care can also help center you in routines and awareness, and keep your mind from wandering into the dark and sometimes irrational unknown.

Don't chastise yourself for worrying

Finally, don't let guilt be your anxiety's unwelcome companion. You are allowed to worry or feel bad. When discussing how to talk to children about the coronavirus, health experts told CNN people should acknowledge a child's fear and let them know their feelings are valid. Surely, you can afford yourself the same compassion. The key is to work toward understanding and contextualizing your fears so they don't keep you from living your healthiest life.

source: cnn

If there is one pastime that people in the Middle East are unlikely to give up, it is watching television. In 2018, the daily time spent watching TV per capita in the region was 6 hours and 20 minutes according to Statista, more than double the global time of 2 hours and 48 minutes.

But this is set to decline to 6 hours this year as users in the region switch from watching their shows on traditional television sets to streaming them online.

Between 2013 and 2019, the number of people watching television offline dropped from 98 per cent to 86 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) according to the Media Use in the Middle East report.

This drop has been driven by cheaper and faster internet connectivity and the rise of video on demand (VOD) and streaming services, also known as over-the-top (OTT) players.

As a result, the space has become more competitive, but the penetration of these services in the region pales in comparison to other parts of the world.

Starzplay, a UAE-based subscription VOD service partly owned by Lionsgate, launched in 2014 in response to rising demand for good quality content. Now, the company has the biggest market share in the subscriptions market with 29 per cent compared to US-based Netflix which has the second largest share in Mena with Wit24 per cent, according to the IHS Markit in its Pay TV & Online Video Report Mena 2019.

Netflix arrived in the Middle East in 2016, giving the industry a boost and bringing with it a sense of credibility and awareness of subscription-based streaming services.

Telecommunication and pay TV operators like OSN have launched their own OTT services as a way to maintain market share, while the parallel launch of Apple TV+ and Disney+ into the streaming television space last November in the US poses the threat of even more competition once they are launched in Mena.

“It is not a ‘one player wins it all’ business, different providers complement each other. OTT subscription prices allow customers to have more than one service.

It is a great time to watch content,” says Danny Bates, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Starzplay. 

The online subscription video market is pursuing the same growth pattern that the pay TV market had followed in the region.

By 2023, online video subscriptions will reach almost five million, while revenues will reach $416 million according to the IHS Markit report.

Much of the demand for streaming services is coming from the UAE and Saudi Arabia which together account for 49 per cent of the total subscriptions in Mena. The demand for online streaming subscriptions is likely to overtake pay TV subscriptions like OSN and beIN by 2025.

However, streaming services need to have premium content from the biggest studios in the world in order to stand a chance to compete and bring customers on board, and content remains an expensive product.

Additionally, the significance of telling relevant stories catering to Mena audiences is becoming key, hence the surge in investment in original content production.

Earlier this year, Shahid, MBC Group’s streaming platform relaunched, announcing a partnership with Disney and Fox to bring more than 3,000 hours of content to the biggest streaming library of Arabic content.

“Over the next two years, we aim to substantially increase the size of our investment into drama productions, thus increasing them fourfold, of which the majority will be original and exclusive content,” says Marc Antoine d’Halluin, group chief executive at MBC Group.

Netflix has also increased its original content offerings for Arab audiences while Starzplay recently announced a partnership with Academy Award-winning media and entertainment company, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, to create its first original content series.

Jawwy TV, an OTT platform launched in 2018 for the Mena region through Intigral, a digital provider of sports and entertainment, is seeking to make an impact in the way content is consumed in the region.

“Our roadmap is very intense, and we are trying to develop a product in order to match all the major OTT players in the world, but it will be dedicated for Mena content,” said Tony Saab, vice-president of products and content at Intigral.

The service continues to explore agreements with numerous players, in addition to creating original content and acquiring Arabic content.

As more users begin to consume content online, competition will no doubt intensify. One casualty of this growing competition was Malaysia-based iFlix, which pulled out of the Mena region two years after its launch in 2017, unable to replicate the success of its core market in South East Asia.   

“Streaming services have just scratched the surface of the market in Mena, despite all the [high] numbers,” says Bates who believes that the market is still establishing itself, and businesses will have to continue to evolve and strengthen their product to meet the rising demand.

According to Bates, “iFlix never really came into the region, they had success in Asia, but they came to Mena with the exact model, while it is a different territory, people, culture and ways of doing business”.

For him, it was not about lack of market demand that caused iFlix to exit, it was unfit execution, something that every OTT player should bear in mind.

source: wamda

In the midst of the toilet paper panic, you might be wondering if there’s a way to profit from this madness of the crowd.

Of course, there is. But there’s a better (and perhaps more ethical) way of doing it rather than stockpiling hand sanitizer in your spare room. There are real needs that large markets of people will soon discover. If you can be the first to provide that need, the world will beat a path to your door.

Can you think of the new wants that will result from more people working at home, student classrooms relocating from physical plant to the web and leisure activities moving from arenas and theaters to gaming systems and online movie archives?

Perhaps to grease your creative gears, it will help to explore the quick history of invention through the lens of economic eras. As populations expanded and grew, the need for greater food production increased. To meet this need, creative tinkerers invented tools and machinery to enable greater agricultural efficiencies.

Soon, demand for these tools and machines created a need for greater industrial production. Imaginative logistical thinkers designed new and better manufacturing methods to meet this demand.

Voilà! Bye-bye agricultural age, hello industrial age.

After about a century, it became clear the manufacturing advantage would fall to those who could process data quicker. A need for a machine capable of handling this massive number crunching emerged; thus, the computer was created.

Soon, the industrial economy gave way to our current age: the information economy.

It is this new business of bits and bytes which saw an increased need for faster and more expansive delivery of data. This need allowed a generation-old invention—the internet—to find a niche that exploded the information economy.

As you can see, a specific need triggered each transition from one form of economic activity to another. The results of the conoravirus, and the social distancing policies put in place to prevent further spread of COVID-19, will likely produce a vast array of previously unknown necessities. Maybe some future economic historian will call this period the beginning of the “CoronaEcomony.”

Here is where your entrepreneurial acumen can serve all mankind. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention.

Does this interest you? Do you suspect you’ll have idle time as a result of going out less? Would you be interested in seeking a way to earn money by delivering newly invented products and services that will benefit your friends, neighbors and perhaps the nation (if not the world)?

Consider how the three behavioral changes defined above may reveal new wants just waiting to be filled.

1: Telecommuting becomes the new norm.

Many suggest remote working will be just temporary. Thought leaders, however, realize the need to work at home will reveal the existence of inefficiencies that exist in the current way of doing things.

Here’s a simple example: the face-to-face directors meeting. This has been a norm since the beginning of the industrial revolution when the entity known as the “corporation” became the standard. Directors would gather together for lunch, dinner or some other activity and hold a meeting.

In the past this was a physical meeting. More often than not today, if you want the best directors, you better be able to allow them to videoconference.

Why? Simply stated, the cost in both time and money required of travel does not offset the value-added of meeting face-to-face.

Now translate this metaphor to the office environment. If your job has you working on a computer in a cubicle each day, why can’t that cubicle be in your home? It’ll reduce your cost of traveling to work, of buying lunch every day and the maintenance (and acquisition) of your wardrobe.

At what point do those costs outweigh the benefits of working in close proximity to one another?

Do you see why telecommuting can become the new norm?

What new wants will bubble up as a result of more people working at home? Perhaps a better understanding of how to make their Wi-Fi more efficient. Maybe they’ll want to learn how to cook meals quicker or more elaborately.

A few years ago, Sonja Nenonene shifted from working for an accounting firm to set up her own tax business at home. She expected to need to buy her own office supplies. “What I didn’t expect,” says Nenonene, “was the need for administrative services. I don’t have a big copier at my house, so I had to find an external provider for this. Normally, I would hand this off to someone else to do the printing and mailing.”

Will telecommuting produce an increased demand for virtual assistants, online tech support and web-based training?

To be honest, you shouldn’t expect to find the answer to “undiscovered wants” in a Forbes.com article. (Otherwise they wouldn’t be “undiscovered,” would they?)

#2: Distance learning becomes the new norm.

Online learning was a growing and evolving industry until regulations made it more difficult for the for-profit educational organizations advancing the idea. While the growth has slowed, it never stopped.

Now it may accelerate as not-for-profit institutions are compelled to deliver their product via the internet. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it usually proves difficult to force the genie back into its captivity. These institutions may realize the benefit of accommodating more students by offering online programs.

This has the potential to broaden the availability of the program to students who are less able to afford higher education because online classes will be offered at a lower cost. In addition, by living at home, students would not burden themselves with the cost of room and board and they’ll be able to continue working at home.

Who knows, with the right part-time job, students won’t have to worry about college loans and may even show net earnings as a result.

The trickier aspect is at the secondary school level. While everyone might not be able to be homeschooled, what if school districts offered students the option to go to school at home?

For smaller school districts, this might make more classes available to students. In the past, if not enough students enrolled in a particular course, that course would not be offered. By making the course available online to multiple districts, the chances are greater that the class will meet the minimum enrollment requirements.

Where is the entrepreneurial opportunity for you?

If you have a niche hobby that represents a small slice of a broader curriculum, you might be able to provide online sessions, workshops and even interactive learning experiences. For example, astronomy is but a tiny subset of Earth Science, and few high school teachers have a formal education in the subject.

If you do, and you can get your hands on the curriculum requirements of your state, you can create a package teachers can use (assuming their districts will allow them to buy it).

#3: New types of sports, entertainment and leisure activities.

Despite the safety of social distancing, humans, being human, will always have a need for human interaction. Think of how you socialize (outside of work). You watch sports, go to movies and go out with friends.

Social distancing has cancelled and postponed sports and made attending social events a risky proposition.

It is in this category that we find the highest potential as well as the most relevant existing examples.

Here’s an idea you can’t do but might offer you a template. The NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament has been postponed.

What if the relevant colleges and broadcast networks got together with Take-Two Interactive and created a customized version of their basketball video game. They could then air simulated games as if it were the actual tournament.

You could do the same thing with an online game that allows you to play and record. People are already doing this, but it doesn’t yet have the broad appeal that the NBA and NHL have. If you can package even a neighborhood league, you can begin to attract your own audience.

Have you always wanted to own your own sports team? Now’s your chance.

The same thing applies to your long-standing desire to produce TV shows and movies. With live TV shows going dark and movie theaters empty, get your director’s chair ready!

It’s easier now than it has ever been to start your own YouTube channel or podcast.

Do you see a market that you enjoy and no one is yet serving? This represents a prime-time opportunity for the budding entrepreneur.

Yes, you aren’t alone if you see the current reaction to the coronavirus as socially disruptive. It is.

Don’t look at this period as a “glass half-empty” time.

Put your thinking cap on and see it as a “glass half-full” occasion.

Remember, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

Seize this day. Become a Coronapreneur.

source: forbes

Never do you forget that sinking feeling like an executive, treading water as the tide keeps rising.

The painted picture of what it was supposed to be like, the natural career progression; however, the reality of the speed of change within that role is so real for new time executives.

Harvard Business Review reported that 50 percent of executives would leave within the first 18 months of their appointment.

Executives feel like they carry the weight of the world in a turbulent and complex environment.

Ron Carucci in his Harvard Business Review article reported that “38 percent of executives said they didn’t expect the loneliness and isolation that accompanied their jobs and 54 percent said they felt they were being held accountable for problems outside their control”.

The pressure to produce results is never-ending and at times, unforgiving. Sometimes, executives need a guiding light to walk alongside them to illuminate the path forward, establish credibility and sustain their results. 

Like an elite professional who engages a sports coach to develop and strengthen capabilities, skills and mindset, successful executives access tailored-made advice to reveal their blind spots, leverage their strengths and support them to carve a way forward.

When organizations invest in accelerating the learning curve, they build influencing skills and minimize the risk of mediocre team leadership.

The executive learning curve, moving from operational to strategic thinking and leadership, alongside rapid change, can be one of the most significant challenges for a new leader.

Many executives do not make a successful leap. Here are eight ways to set up new leaders for success.

The same qualities do not lead to success

When executives transition into their first-time experience, they must invest in consciously separating themselves from the day to day decisions to be more comfortable with ambiguity.

Executives who embrace the uncertainty, leverage ambiguous environments, are in a prime position to launch new ideas and try on new approaches and behaviors.

By transitioning from technical responsibilities to a strategic leader that invests in forward-facing thinking, allows the executive to paint a picture of what is possible and graciously pull people along. 

Engage the hearts and minds of people

Moving to a new level of leadership demands an ability to influence others to accomplish what is needed. Executive leadership involves facilitating people through risk and change; therefore, trust is vital to building the bridge.

No leader is an island and cultivating the power of networks will identify people who will lead and execute the vision.

When executives do not invest in building and nurturing those relationships, there will be a lack of buy-in and commitment to bring the vision to reality. 

The adaptative leader

In today’s climate, executives must quickly adapt and make decisions when needed. The rate of change continues to speed up. Executives must lead with transparency, consistency, take action to create stability within the environment and continue to deliver quality services despite the level of disruptive change.

The adaptive leader builds skills for unlocking the potential in people, mobilize collective wisdom and lead collaboratively innovative solutions to drive change. This new type of leader is the catalyst for real transformation this decade.

 The slippery slope of overconfidence

The overconfident leader can negate the leadership qualities you want within your organization and can cross the line into the danger zone.

Executive overconfidence has been blamed for company failure and financial distress within organizations.

Overconfidence can hinder a leader’s authenticity, be the enemy of humility and stain the fabric of an organization by putting them at risk. 

Self-confidence plays a role in leadership. When executives understand their strengths and areas for development in a balanced way, they can break through obstacles as challenges, lead their inner critic and create the right environment for problems to be solved. 

Shut up and listen

The best advice l was every given when transitioning into a new executive role was to “shut and listen”.

The evolution of a new role may be unlearning everything that you know to step into the position of listener and learner. Executives must create a different type of operating system to interact and communicate within and external to the organization. 

Calm within the storm

Executive presence is a vital leadership characteristic that costs nothing, but everyone gains. When an executive comes from a place of inner clarity and conviction, it evolves from what matters most to you.

Executives that have presence look for the best in people acknowledge that everyone has faults and make mistakes, including themselves and they, focus on what matters.

What l mean is that they don’t confuse urgent for necessary and remain committed to the priorities. They are the calm within the chaos because they know their best emotional state and remain fully present.

Delve deeper

Executives must know who they are. There strengths, passion and areas of development are foundational pillars. The “I can do anything” mantra doesn’t work in the world of executive leadership. Buying the delusion that you can do everything is a false economy.

Instead, a 360-feedback process opens the door to explore how others experience you on your leadership abilities. Behavioral profiling tools, such as Extended DISC, will also provide insight into how you are naturally wired, foster opportunities to adapt your thinking and behavior to be more productive, appreciate your motivators, strengths and developmental areas.

It also improves opens conversations within teams in terms of how effective communication is flowing up and down the organization and creates a platform to understand and reshape organizational culture. 

Invest in executive coaching

The first 90 days of an executive’s transition is critical. Engaging an executive coach can unlock a leader’s potential to maximize overall performance and the bottom line. By investing in executive coaching, you can build your skills, a strategic plan to ensure growth and a bright future path. Successful leaders continuously improve and develop their skills and are committed to having a safe place to grow, learn and be challenged. 

In a case study, Harvard Business Review reported that one financial services company approached the execution of the new schedule in simple ways – “articulate a hypothesis. Go out and experiment. And if it doesn’t work, then why not? What did you learn? Add to it. Capture your learning. Share it with other people.” 

The executive coaching relationship can be a powerful catalyst to create a sustainable growth plan and in partnership, support you to navigate the challenges and celebrate the successes — an alliance to propel you and the organization for success. 

source: entrepreneu

'It’s the biggest nuclear winter I’ve ever seen in online travel'

ith the globalized world going into partial or complete lock down over the Covid-19 pandemic, startups in the travel sector are facing a huge stress test and immediate disruption to business as usual as public health concern spirals and entire populations are encouraged or even forced not to travel.

The traditional travel hub of Europe has emerged as a secondary hotspot for the virus, after SARS-CoV-2 first emerged in China late last year.

Italy, France and Spain have all reported thousands of cases apiece, with the latter declaring a state of high alert today. Earlier this week Italy — the hardest hit EU country so far — imposed nationwide travel restrictions, with confirmed cases passing 12,000 as of yesterday.

Several other EU countries have also implemented varying quarantine measures. More lockdowns are expected in the coming weeks.

In a further development, US President Trump sent shockwaves through EU institutions earlier this week by unilaterally announcing a 30-day ban on travel from most countries in the bloc.

Today the European Commission came out with its own response — laying out a $37BN package of measures intended to mitigate the socio-economic impact of Covid-19, including bringing forward €1BN out of the EU budget to act as a guarantee to the European Investment Fund to encourage banks to lend to SMEs in affected sectors.

“This is expected to mobilise €8BN of working capital financing and support at least 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses and small mid-cap companies in the EU,” the Commission said, suggesting banks will be in a position to act on the liquidity injection from April 2020.

Of course travel startups with investor capital in the bank aren’t waiting around to react to the coronavirus crisis. They’re already ripping up 2020 roadmaps and thinking again — swapping out marketing plans and doubling down on product and engineering, according to three businesses we spoke to.

We asked three European travel startups how they’re being impacted by the coronavirus crisis and what steps they’re taking to manage a demand crunch combined with ongoing — and potentially long term — uncertainty in the sector.

Berlin-based GetYourGuide, which has built a marketplace selling sightseeing tours and other travel experiences, and last year bagged a $484M Series E round; Omio, another Berlin-based startup that’s built a multi-modal travel aggregator and booking platform, backed by nearly $300M to-date; and Barcelona-based TravelPerk, a fast-growing business travel booking platform that’s pulled in more than $130M in VC funding as it shakes up a legacy space.

‘Demand is dropping off a cliff’

All three told us they’ve seen a major drop in bookings combined with a rise in customer service demand as people with existing travel plans seek to get in touch to cancel or reschedule trips.

As of this week GetYourGuide said bookings for new experiences are down nearly 50% globally vs its demand forecasts for the past two weeks.

While customer service enquiries have tripled in the past two weeks, and its global cancellation rate has ticked up by 20%.

Those that are still planning trips are doing so closer to home or with less advanced notice than normal — with bookings made within three days of the start time up 15%. 

“It’s the biggest nuclear winter I’ve ever seen in online travel,” co-founder and CEO Johannes Reck told TechCrunch.

“Everyone goes and prepares for Easter break and that is not at all happening. All of the European countries seem to be in lockdown.

“None of our Italian customers are booking, the German customers have degraded rapidly.

France and Spain have recently followed. The UK has been more stable but seems to follow the same course now. And the US since [Trump announced the travel ban] as well… The US travel ban is now sealing it. So this will be a year of extreme turbulence of the travel market.”

For Omio  it’s a similar story — with bookings over the last two weeks down between 30-40% overall across all markets, according to founder and CEO Naren Shaam, and a big spike in demand for customer service as worried customers look to cancel trips.

“The whole company is actually stepping in to help customer service because we’ve seen a spike in cancellations,” he said. “In general the impact is heavy. Demand is dropping off a cliff but it’s not as bad as we thought — but it is definitely heavy.”

It’s seeing similar changes in booking behavior. “Advanced booking has come down drastically,” he noted. “But we see a spike in short term last minute trips when people feel comfortable on the region — so that’s gone up a lot.”

TravelPerk  told us it’s currently dealing with a drop in business globally of around 50%. Though co-founder and CEO Avi Meir is braced for further drops if more of the West goes into lockdown forcing more companies to scrap business trips.  

“You would expect that it dropped to zero but right now people are still travelling,” he told us. “Everybody who can avoid traveling right now probably should and does but you have many people who just critically have to keep travelling — so we see around 50% drop right now.”

“Regionally of course as expected APACS has been the most affected in terms of our volumes — Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China down north of 95%. 100% depending on which day you’re looking and what country you’re looking at,” he added.

“China is actually starting to open up a little bit but at the peak we looked at 100% — nothing was being booked in terms of destination.

“In terms of the more core markets for us, Italy is 84% down right now… You also see significant impact in Belgium, Netherlands, Holland, Sweden.

“France, Spain and UK are down year-on-year but not significantly yet. In the Western part of the continent and the UK people are still traveling relatively more than other countries.”

Demand for TravelPerk’s customer support has also never been so busy, he also said.

“We actually are switching some of our sales team to customer support in the coming weeks just to support the volume of tickets,” he noted.

“We’re very proud that our metrics are not declining — meaning specifically service level; how fast we solve cases; our ‘C-sats’, customer satisfaction. The metrics we really care about.  Are people happy and are we solving their cases fast?

“We’re keeping them although, so far, the past weeks have been the busiest in customer support since we started the company via number of tickets.”

TravelPerk has also seen radical changes to the usual booking window. “Most of the trips we see right now is somebody booking for tomorrow or for two days from now because they for know they can travel or have certainty they can travel,” said Meir. “Which is unusual compared to normal times. In normal times people book  20-21 days ahead on average. So you have a huge decrease in the booking window.”

While of its flagship products is actually seeing high demand in the current crisis situation, per Meir — given it’s designed to offer resilience against unforeseen changes to plans.

“We have this product, FlexiPerk, which allows the users to cancel or change for any reason and if they do they get at least 90% of the money back. FlexiPerk has been really, really on fire over the past few weeks — both in terms of users, those who are already on FlexiPerk and also new sign-ups which is actually driving a lot of our growth in terms of signs ups.

“It gives people the certainty — or it reduces the uncertainty — about the mid- term or long term future. So if you are planning a trip in September or in October it’s reasonable to expect to be able to travel but you don’t really know. And FlexiPerk really plugs this gap because it allows you to book now for September knowing that if you have to change your plans you can do so without losing the money.”

“Right now most of the airlines have changed their cancelation policies so we are able to get full refunds in many cases,” he added. 

All three European businesses said the changes in demand had hit extremely rapidly.

“Up until maybe 2-3 weeks ago we were still growing,” Meir told us. “Because most of our travellers — or at least the headquarters of the travellers — are concentrated in Europe and North America so the impact was kind of delayed.”

“Since we’re more a global business we already started noticing Chinese outbound dropping — because we have an office in China — it hit us already around January, February. So we already saw that in our Chinese outbound dropping by 90+%,” added Omio’s Shaam. 

GetYourGuide’s Reck said it was also forewarned of the looming crunch via their Asian business.

“We had already seen a significant decline in our Asian business,” he told us. “That was still so small and the overall growth in Europe and the US was so strong that it was negligible at that point in time — but it gave us a glimpse.”

Two of its investors, Japan-based Softbank and Singapore-based Temasek, also put GetYourGuide on early “red alert” over the novel coronavirus because other portfolio companies were suffering heavy impacts.

“We had two weeks to prepare which I guess put us ahead of the curve for most other US and European companies,” said Reck. “Then when corona hit, at the end of February, we’ve seen a very rapid decline and now the current global travel demand is roughly 60% down from where it should be at this point in time so we are massively depressed.”

The change is more marked for being set against “a tremendous start to the year” before the virus hit Europe — Reck dubs it “the best time in history of the company” — with January and February seeing it close to doubling business. 

Rerouting resources in a travel crunch

So how are the three founders coping with a sudden revenue crunch combined with spiralling global uncertainty falling over their sector?

All three described being relatively well cushioned — on account of recent financing.

“We are in an incredible position because we’ve raised this massive round last year and we haven’t spent a lot of it,” said GetYourGuide’s Reck. “We’ve been very frugal with it. In the early months after the fund raise SoftBank was very angry with us that we were so disciplined and we weren’t investing more in growth. Now they’re, I think, very, very happy — the new role model for the portfolio.

“The good news is that as we come from a position of strength and we will survive and prevail for sure. That’s the positive news.”

With plenty of capital still in the bank the team has been able to quickly redirect resources on servicing near-term customer needs during the travel crunch.

“The way we’re seeing this internally is with every major crisis comes major opportunity. At this point in time we believe there’s incredible opportunity to make a real different for our customers, our suppliers and our ecosystem broadly,” Reck added. “For instance, for customers we have pushed immediately after we saw the news coming full flexibility on bookings and cancelations.

“Customers can now cancel all of the experiences 24 hours in advance, no questions asked, for a refund. If you go under 24 hours you actually get a gift coupon so you can rebook of the full value in the future. And if you’re affected by a lockdown you will get the full amount back no questions asked.”

“We’ve been doing mass cancellations for Italy. We’re just doing it for France. We’re doing it for the US because of the travel ban now. We refund our customers fully, no questions asked,” he added.

Reck also said it’s doing what it can to support suppliers who will also clearly be struggling from the same demand crunch.

“Wherever there’s an opening where we see demand popping up again we make sure it gets as quickly as possible to our suppliers,” he told us, saying its doubling down on its GetYourGuide Originals in-house short tours product. “We want to be a good partner. We don’t go in now and start to negotiate on commission rates or anything like that.”

Another area it’s spending on right now is localization — in order that it can support suppliers by being able to cater to demand cropping up off the beaten track.

“We’re translating our offering into more languages,” he noted. “We’re making sure the offering itself has better terms for the customers in terms of cancelation policies and we’re educating the suppliers around that — and that will ultimately drive their bookings. So we are doing quite a bit in order to make sure that they survive and that they get the revenue through our platform that they deserve.”

Zooming out, Reck told us he’s taking “a really long term view” on travel.

“The travel landscape through this crisis will inevitably change,” he predicted. “When the corona crisis is over online travel will look very different and just survival is going to be an incredible competitive advantage vs the rest. We believe that a lot of players will go bust. And we see that already as we speak so over the next couple of days you’ll see major layoffs, you’ll see restructurings, you’ll see people scramble.”

“That’s what we always said when we raised the SoftBank round. Ironically I never knew that long term view would actually mean that we freeze down for a year… but if you look at online travel over the course of history and you look at the big dips — like 9/11 was a massive dip and the following recession; the financial crisis was a massive dip — you see overall travel is a long term trend. And I think if you look at a ten year timespan even this corona crisis will just be a small dip in a growth curve.

“So I’m very long on travel over a longer period of time. And that’s where we’re doubling down. So we’re rather taking the opportunity now to really focus on product and engineering — and that’s something really liberating to me. Of not really having a 2020 budget anymore.

“The conversion gains on the margin won’t matter. So we can really double down on significantly improving the product for our customer and that means giving a better search and discovery experience, more personalized, curating more GetYourGuide Originals with our suppliers… So that when we come out of this crisis we come out with a better technology product and a much better supply base.”

“I think, as I said, just surviving will be a competitive advantage. Surviving with a better product and better supply will be magic — and that’s really what we’re betting on.”

Omio, meanwhile, is also in a position to look beyond the current crisis in demand.

“We are lucky to be well funded and have raised a lot of capital,” said Shaam. “We’re lucky to have very long term investors when you think of Kinnevik and Temasek — both of them…. almost like a mutual fund so basically long term capital.”

Nonetheless, the business has responded to plunging demand by trimming variable costs — while also viewing the demand crunch as an opportunity to rechannel investment into the core product.

“We’re cutting all variable costs, managing the costs better, taking precautions — using the crisis as an opportunity… fixing all the systems we could never invest in in scale because every month there’s a metric to meet. And really then rearchitecting for scalability,” he told us.

“Because the main thing is if you think of travel, human inherent desire to travel is never going to go down.

Right now what we’re doing is bottling that in for 3-4 months but you’ve got to open the lid at some point — I hope — and when that comes out the demand will grow even faster.

And we want to be ready for that. So we’re using this, call it, crisis as an opportunity to really build scalability. All the underlying architecture, campaign structures, whatever data flows were not perfect before, product messaging etc.

“The cash position of course is something we have an eye on, as stewards of capital, but it’s more so that we’re also using this as an opportunity to really think long term and how we actually benefit.”

Duty of care

As a crisis response, Shaam said Omio has put together three internal task forces to respond to immediate challenges — one focused on supporting its customers; another on its own employees; and a third concentrating on business stability and figuring out where to invest and where to pull back during unusual times.

On the customer support side Omio’s suppliers define cancellation policies so there’s only so much it can do but Shaam said it’s been putting out messaging to help users — creating a spreadsheet of cancellation policies listing companies that give refunds and those that don’t, and publishing updates on things like cancelled flights. 

On the employee support side there’s a mix of well-being and practical issues being tackled. 

“How can we protect safety regulations? Trigger points. We have clear guidelines… today we triggered that we work from home for 15 days,” he said. “How to protect mental health so nobody goes crazy sitting at home all day? Connectivity, all of that stuff.

What if you have school shut down — how do you balance children at home alone with working at the same time? All of this stuff.

“There’s a lot of practical questions that come up — like the design team need to take their chunky monitors home so they can actually design. All of these things are being tackled by that task force.”

“As a startup you can actually bring these together very quickly,” Shaam added. “Today we had a small team — that team is now quite large, 10+ people going at all three workstreams. So let’s see how we survive.

“Again, there’s a lot of uncertainty but I feel that the best thing I can do is bring stability, bring confidence into the organization.”

TravelPerk’s Meir said the business is also most focused on responding to immediate challenges and needs — including keeping up with the demand it’s seeing.

Even though bookings are down new sign ups are up, he told us.

“The focus right now as an organization is really on the day by day — we need to make sure we keep providing the service,” he said. “We keep actually selling and a lot of companies are signing up. Sign ups are actually dramatically up.

People are signing up they’re just obviously not travelling so we have a lot of short term priorities that are extremely important.

“Maybe if we hadn’t raised a C round last year — $100+ million — we would be in a different situation but right now we are fortunate to be in this position so we have to focus on short term priorities without knowing where it’s going to end.”

The company is also using a moment of plunging sales to direct attention on product. And is hiring more engineers to be able to accelerate product dev — including to build crisis response features.

“I’m sure we’re not unique in the tech world but we’re actually investing more in the product. So we keep hiring — we actually increased our hiring plan for product and engineering.

And so far we’re not reducing our burn let’s say but we’re shifting that towards really what matters for our customers.

“We’re already ahead of the curve in product but this is a really good opportunity to keep pushing on our strengths and another one we’re doing is adjusting the business and the business model as well.”

Meir gave the example of a premium concierge service which it’s just decided to provide for free for all its users for the next three months.

 “Although it’s going to increase dramatically our costs in customer care it’s the right thing to do for our customers,” he said of that particular coronavirus triggered business adjustment.

“You’ll see some really cool stuff coming out,” he added. “The product team, together with the commercial team is changing roadmaps. In a way we threw the roadmap of 2020 to the bin and we started working on a weekly basis.”

Another example he gave is a new feature it’s launched in partnership with medical and travel security company, International SoS, to help companies not only track where in the world their employees are but ensure they have the medical or other crisis expertise support available should the worst happen off-site.

“It’s the best company in the world for duty of care,” said Meir. “It’s one of those topics that in normal times people don’t really like to think about it — but this is probably the highest request we were getting in the past 2-3 weeks from customers.” 

“We went from idea to releasing it in less than 5 days of work,” he added. “So again reducing the risk, reducing the uncertainty piece. This is a thing that we’re going to do more and more as this situation evolves.

If we have a request for a feature like ‘duty of care’ — which makes tonnes of sense right now — we’re going to shift the roadmap and do more of these kind of things.”

“This is a moment to be decisive and adaptable but also courageous and to invest in what makes TravelPerk stronger this year, next year and ten years,” he added. “This doesn’t change — we have great investors.

We have a good cash position, great team. So we should keep hiring, we should keep investing in the product, we should keep investing in our service — so my biggest worry is that we [don’t] act out of panic or out of confusion — and that’s something we should be aware of and not do. But I’m happy to say that that’s not the case.”

As part of its own pro-active crisis response, TravelPerk has this week switched to 100% remote working — a radical change for Meir, who has deliberately required presence from his staff up to now for workplace culture reasons.

“We don’t do remote work. It’s something that’s one of these trendy things that we decided not to do yet for various reasons.

We just think our culture is much stronger when people are physically in the same space and we switched from nobody does remote work to 100% remote,” he told us. 

“We thought that the government — especially in Spain where most of our team is — is not reacting fast enough and aggressively enough [to Covid-19]. This is really unfair for the elderly and those who have previous health conditions…So we decided to take action… And I was just amazed how fast we transitioned from a company that doesn’t do remote to full on remote.”

GetYourGuide has also gone fully remote. “We did that on Monday,” said Reck. “Everyone called me crazy and now on Friday everyone wants to have our best practices playbook.”

“The health and safety of our employees and most importantly of the community around us [is our biggest concern],” he added. “We are in constant contact with everyone — to make sure people feel safe.

“They are now at home, they follow the news all the time. There’s huge psychological pressure — the travel market’s going down, the stock market’s going down — so for me by biggest role is to keep that strong engagement and morale and that people don’t feel threatened by the situation around them.”

As it happens, Reck is a biochemist by education — so likely one of relatively few founders in the travel space with hands-on lab experience of viruses. He’s also braced for the longest ‘nuclear winter’ of business disruption of the three startups we spoke to.

“What we know about this virus is there is no immunity in the population — meaning that this will continue to spread,” he said. “Every potential person is a host. And it’s very infectious and it seems to stick around quite a bit.

And it puts a lot of stress on public health systems. So I personally anticipate there will be a very long lockdown in a lot of countries. And there will be only a very slow recovery.

If you’d ask me we might see some reopening of the travel landscape in summer but I think that will be far diminished from a typical season. We’ll only see a full recovery towards May, June, July 2021. I don’t think it will be earlier than that.”

“It will get worse,” he added. “We know now it’s very likely there will be a lockdown [across the West]. My biggest wish for the next couple of weeks will be that employees continue to be healthy, safe and continue to be able to work and contribute like they’ve done.” 

Omio’s Shaam is expecting at least several months of disruption to business as usual — pointing to the lack of a swift and coordinated response from governments to implement quarantine measures.

“We need a system-wide [response] like China or Singapore has done beautifully to really prevent it and I don’t believe that’s going to happen so we’re bracing for 3-4 months impact,” he told us. 

“I just went out last night in Berlin with my wife for dinner and the restaurants are full, it’s crowded, the subways are full — full! Like not even 20% lower. Completely full.

We had to make a reservation to get a table etc. So unless governments, in a very coordinated way, shut down borders for a period of 4-6 weeks so everybody goes into isolation in one go and everybody comes out — it’s going to drip feed for a long time because people are acting in different points of time on their own means.”

On the question of whether there will be a lasting impact on the travel market as the pandemic undoes global supply chains and routines, Shaam said again that’s likely to depend on how co-ordinated or otherwise the response is. 

“There’s a lot of fixed costs part of travel. So I think the answer to that largely depends on how co-ordinated and how quickly we can contain.

If we all actually manage to come back in 3-4 months I think we’re in a good place because it’ll bounce back quite strongly. If it’s drip feeding, and it takes the wind out for a very long time, then there will be a different situation but I hope not.”

In the meanwhile, with so many businesses getting au fait with virtual meetings and videoconferencing tools, the coronavirus crisis could also have a long term impact on demand for business travel — if lots of companies realize quite how much can be done remotely.

On this element of the crisis, TravelPerk’s Meir isn’t concerned. 

“It’s an interesting theory,” he said, deferring from hazarding a guess on whether it will come to pass or not. “It doesn’t really matter for us as a company.

Because companies spend $1.6TR a year on business travel. And it’s a market that is growing. Before this crisis predicted growth of 6 or 7% in 2020 — which is huge compared to the size of the market. So even if we’re talking about 10-20%, let’s say, at the edges this doesn’t change the picture. You still will have a tonne of business travel when we come back out of it.”

“If we zoom out a bit from this situation — there is a trend for more sustainable approach to travel,” Meir added. “So if so many things can turn into a Zoom call I don’t think it’s a bad idea for the planet. And we will do well. We’re not worried about a scenario like this.”

Here TravelPerk isn’t worried because the startup has another product for that: GreenPerk — a carbon offset offering it launched earlier this month.

It’s been developed in partnership with non-profit Atmosfair, which works on decarbonization via UN-endorsed carbon mitigation projects.

“Many companies asked us to help them offset and reduce the impact that their travel generates and we thought that just reporting on what harm you do is not good enough.

We wanted actually to make a difference,” said Meir. “One of the projects that we chose is efficient cooking stoves in Rwanda.”

GreenPerk uses an algorithm to calculate the carbon footprint of a given trip and then applies a per booking fee proportional to the pollution created — with the fee going to fund the carbon offset project.

GreenPerk is an opt in product — and Meir says it’s already had “amazing traction”, with more than 50 companies already signed up and using it.

“It’s unfair for us — people who live in very comfortable counties — to ask people in Rwanda to stop cooking their food but if we can help them transition to efficient and also faster ways of cooking then we should definitely do that… so the project funds efficient cooking stoves to replace the polluting ones.”

“If the world after this crisis looks like we are conscious about how we travel — when we do travel we try not to have an impact — and if, sometimes, making Zoom calls are better than face to face I think it’s not a bad scenario for the world.

And we as a travel company will adapt like we always have,” he added. “It’s more interesting to look at the long term implication — rather than ‘is it good for our quarter or not’.”

source: techcrunch