M+E Daily

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the media and entertainment industry globally, pausing, slowing or entirely shutting down productions. But artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology is being used to help production organizations manage health and safety risks while managing the rigorous demands of running busy production schedules, according to Softtek.

The pandemic “has affected everyone” and “we suffer its consequences personally, in our jobs, and in our country,” Jorge Zarur, media and entertainment lead at Softtek, said during the WFH & Disruption breakout session “All Quiet on Set! How Technology Inspired by Art can get Productions Safely Rolling” at the March 16 Smart Content Summit.

“Specifically to our industry,” the effects have been “countless,” he said. For example, “the number of new productions hit a new low while the world was in desperate need for more content than ever before,” he noted.

But “going to the recording studios” – music or film – “became a major issue,” he said. After all, “how can a makeup artist work on an actor or an actress, or how can somebody do custom fitting and special effects on somebody?” he pointed out.

Similarly, sound engineers must place microphones on performers, while actors must interact with each other, he said, adding: “How can all these people do their jobs and remain safe at the same time? How do we ensure compliance to the regulations” that are in effect “as a consequence of COVID when we know that those regulations have to be made while running … what’s required during pre-production, production and post-production?”

There is “always hope that things will get better and we are seeing paramount efforts fighting this disease,” he noted. “But COVID is stronger, tougher and meaner than we thought it was at the beginning.”

At Softtek, “we recognize all this,” he told viewers, noting Softtek is a global organization started in Mexico 40 years ago.

In the last decade of the 19^th century, Mexico saw the births of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, an artist “power couple,” he went on to say. Now, “inspired by Rivera’s work, at Softtek we have created a digital enablement platform for optimization and we have called it Diego,” he said, adding: “Propelled by Kahlo’s passion, we created a framework for artificial intelligence and called it Frida. Diego Rivera’s resolve serves as an example for us to face COVID.”

Meanwhile, Aldo Gamaliel, head of digital APIs and microservices at Softtek, “envisioned Resilient, a solution that is sitting on top of our platform,” Zarur said.

The Health Sector Teams With Tech and M&E

Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), the largest health organization in Latin America, has been a “key player in this journey,” and has been a Softtek customer for more than 20 years, Gamaliel said.

“When all the disruption started in March last year,” IMSS asked for a digital solution that helped flatten the COVID-19 curve and requested innovation very quickly and “that was precisely what we did,” in collaboration with IMSS, he told viewers.

It was a “huge learning process” for Softtek, he noted, adding the company realized solutions were needed for during the pandemic and after the pandemic too.

In the media and entertainment industry, there are new regulations, new policies and best practices to “help organizations return to work,” he pointed out.

The Resilient Platform

The Resilient platform is focused on “wellness and security for the people in the spaces of the organizations where they work,” he said. The platform was designed to follow the “three main pillars recommended by” the World Health Organization (WHO): Social distancing, test management and contact tracing, he explained.

It is a comprehensive, integrated platform that is “highly configurable to the organizations’ specific instances and cases,” he noted. The platform was designed to meet the needs of organizations that told Softtek there was not one solution that covered all three main pillars of the WHO.

The platform includes a Command Center that “helps to configure the platform and make it available to the user,” as well as a personal mobile app through which Softtek provides services to users so they have access to digital passports, vaccine and test management, and more, he explained.

The platform also includes access control and occupancy apps and a cognitive chatbot, with enterprise application programming interface (API) connectivity, he went on to say.

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The Smart Content Summit was produced by MESA and the Smart Content Council, and was sponsored by Microsoft Azure, Whip Media Group, Richey May Technology Solutions, BeBanjo, Digital Nirvana, Softtek, 24Notion, EIDR, The Quorum and Signiant.