IT plays a preponderant role in different crisis management scenarios, such as natural disasters and terrorism[1]. It is based on orchestrated technological infrastructures for exchanging and processing contextualized data, capable of providing valuable decision support information, that mitigates issues at this level of complexity.

In fact, it is a war on several fronts against the invisibility and apparent omnipresence of a sneaky adversary, which greatly limits the range of measures that can be taken at the highest level and which aim to strike a delicate balance between two dishes of a same scale: one that weighs the burden on the national health service; and another that measures the indicators of a socioeconomic system on the verge of collapse.

Due to the deterioration of this game of balance and the intra- and inter-relationship underlying the value chain, some sectors of activities have already been identified in a situation of aggravated penalization, from the areas of energy, water and waste, to tourism and restaurants. to the agri-food industries [3].

Globally, despite all the fear and uncertainty brought about by this recent situation, the readaptation of the state and the various sectors of the economy to emerging challenges has been dynamic and rapid, which are essentially based on 4 levels of action:

• Reinforcement of the hygienic safety of physical business points, ensuring the healthy continuity of activities;
• Adoption of telemetric communication routes between producers, retailers, service providers and end consumers;
• Provision of effective and democratic infrastructure for the transaction of goods or services;
• Implementation/readjustment, among the public, of first-line integrative awareness-raising strategies in addition to last-line punitive approaches.

However, with the science, technologies and know-how currently available, there is still a large margin to act in complementarity with ongoing efforts. In the area of tourism, for example, real-time visit systems using telemetry and remote virtual/augmented/mixed reality approaches are not widespread, with the potential to create appealing digital access points linked to structures such as museums and galleries. of exhibitions, which currently see their activities suspended indefinitely.

There is also a potential for IT applicability in hotel services, particularly about the certification of hygiene and cleanliness of facilities, which ends up being a sensitive and controversial point due to the insecurity it generates among the target audience. Low-cost technologies involving chemical sensors, lightweight and based on the location of interiors that could equip cleaning instruments, to attest to the hygiene of spaces could result in an opportunity to reinforce confidence in accommodation-based businesses, both at the level of policy makers as well as in terms of demand. In the context of restaurants, electronic ticket approaches for managing virtual queues and inferring waiting times for more dynamic takeaway services with reduced or no stay in common spaces would possibly be a bet worth considering.

The current impediments to travel between municipalities have also had their share in the impact we are witnessing in the real estate sector linked to the stagnation of rental/purchase of accommodation, especially in locations far from major centres, which could be mitigated if the promotion of solutions for telepresence visits in their various formats (e.g. navigation and visualization of 360º virtual environments) were duly contemplated.

These are just some of the examples of the possible application of IT to mitigate the economic cadence of certain areas, but others could be listed – for example, for the fashion industry, agri-food industry, education, etc. -, even capable of generating chain rehabilitation.

By themselves, many companies in these and other areas do not have the investment capacity to restructure themselves based on IT and, every day, they lose revenue capacity in a context characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic, in an unpredictable recessionary spiral.

State financing tools, if extended with a strategic vision of restructuring, could democratize these companies' access to opportunities that would allow them to face the challenges raised by these new and uncertain times.

Entities capable of carrying out this restructuring, based on experience in research, development and innovation, exist and should be seen as allies in this fight, as is the case with the Interface Centers that play this central role in the Innovation System in Portugal.

The CCG, as a Technological Interface Center for innovation and development for the digital economy, has extensive experience in the areas of augmented, virtual and mixed reality and computer vision, in the increasingly relevant artificial intelligence, big data/data mining, human-human interaction machine, usability, sustainable mobility among many others.

To respond to the new challenges mentioned above, the CCG asserts itself as a key player in the rehabilitation of the economy, with excellent technical know-how for the development of digital products focused on telepresence. One of the most striking examples of this know-how is the FAMEST Project (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-024529) which aims to implement technological solutions applied to the footwear industry.

We highlight the development of a virtual fitting room that allows potential customers of a given commercial area to “try on” shoes in the comfort of their homes, using their smartphone and deep learning and augmented reality technologies.

Without prejudice to the previous aspects, the CCG continues to provide cutting-edge solutions for technological progress in various sectors of activity, for example, collaborating in several automatic optical inspection projects for Industry (metallurgical, metalworking, moulds, etc.) and, more recently, in a project in the health sector focusing on the study of clinical pathology imaging, namely for the detection and characterization of cancer, thus aligning with pillars valued by Horizonte Europe.