Business Model Innovation of Technical Start-ups in Emerging Markets

Innovation is critical for a start-up company to succeed, especially in emerging markets. Business Model Innovation (BMI) is highly related to entrepreneurship, though researchers have not paid sufficient attention on it. This paper develops a conceptual model to address the following questions. First, the authors try to find out the drivers of BMI and the difference between developing and developed countries. Second, the way start-ups partner escrow online payment service providers in emerging markets is discussed. Lastly, this paper studies how BMI could adapt to external changes and maintain a sustainable advantage.

Exploring Smart Material Applications for COVID-19 Pandemic Using 4D Printing Technology

Today, in the medical field, innovative technological advancements support healthcare systems and improve patients’ lives. 4D printing is one of the innovative technologies that creates notable innovations in the medical field. For the COVID-19 pandemic, this technology proves to be useful in the manufacturing of smart medical parts, which helps treat infected patients. As compared to 3D printing, 4D printing adds time as an additional element in the manufactured part. 4D printing uses smart materials with the same printing processes as being used in 3D printing technology, but here the part printed with smart materials change their shape with time or by the change of environmental temperature, which further creates innovation for patient treatments. 4D printing manufactures a given part, layer by layer, by taking input of a virtual (CAD) model and uses smart material. This paper studies the capability of smart materials and their advancements when used in 4D printing. We have diagrammatically presented the significant parts of 4D printing technology. This paper identifies 11 significant applications of 4D printing and then studies which one provides innovative solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Medical 4.0 and Its Role in Healthcare During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review

Medical 4.0 is now emerging as the fourth medical revolution. It represents the applications of electronically supported Information Technology, microsystem, high level of automation, personalized therapy, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled intelligent devices enabled through the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). In the current scenario, the COVID-19 pandemic has a significant effect on global healthcare, and this impact is also observed in associated fields. There is a requirement for proper telehealth management and remote monitoring systems in healthcare. Medical 4.0, if implemented, can adequately handle the ongoing situation in the medical field as it will provide applications of advanced technologies to take care of the challenges of the COVID-19 outbreak. This paper studies Medical 4.0 exclusively and also in the context of COVID-19. The paper provides a brief of the significant medical revolution that has happened so far and identifies the significant supporting technologies of Medical 4.0. It also discusses the primary capabilities of Medical 4.0 for healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The roles of Medical 4.0 in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic are studied, and finally, this paper identifies 10 significant applications of Medical 4.0 in healthcare during COVID-19-type pandemics. We observe that the contemporary phase of development and mass-level production of intelligent medical devices has not happened in the same way as it has happened for smart electronic devices and application devices. Engineers will have a prominent role in taking up the healthcare challenges that can reach the common man.