Remote working and distance education skyrocket in Latin America

During the first months of lockdown, the world was paralyzed or dramatically slowed down physically, but not virtually. According to the latest study the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) made about the need for universalizing access to digital technologies to address the consequences of the pandemic, website traffic, and the use of applications for remote working or distance learning, there was a tremendous increase in the use of digital platforms. 

Between the first and second quarters of 2020, remote work surged by 324 percent while distance education rose more than 60 percent in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. All providers of collaboration and video conferencing platforms benefitted from the immense rise in users.

Zoom, for instance, confirmed on August 31 that it was one of the biggest corporate winners from the coronavirus crisis, as the video conferencing service reported a surge in new business in the three months to the end of July. It reported second-quarter revenues of USD 663.5 million, up 355 percent from last year. Since the start of the pandemic, the platform has been working on converting the mass of free users into paying customers.

But in general usage of Zoom is impressive: it has grown from 10 million daily meeting participants per day in December 2019 to some 300 million in April 2020. Also, daily active users of its mobile app are up an astonishing 1,761-percent...