COVID-19: Resources for Government

Software Industry Resources for Educators
Software Industry Resources for Businesses
Software Industry Resources for Government
Software Enables Vaccine Research, Distribution

Adobe

  • Adobe Connect provides users with interactive, scalable and secure virtual environments for online meetings and other collaboration. The company is providing free 90-day access to Adobe Connect to help government agencies and businesses enable virtual environments for real-time work and online training.

Atlassian

  • Atlassian, the collaboration and productivity software provider, is providing its flagship cloud products for freefor teams of up to 10 people. This is in addition to its existing free offerings for teams of all sizes, and the offer is not time-bound. The offer includes the project tracking software Jira and access to the collaboration software Confluence, Jira Service Desk and the project management software Jira Core.

Box

  • Box is offering tips for working remotely and is offering a free instructor-led course on Box User Essentials (using promo code UEFREE) on how to enable remote work for your organization as quickly as possible.

DocuSign

  • DocuSign mobilized to accelerate critical agreements needed for healthcare, emergency government services, education, small business lending, work from home, and doing business remotely.

IBM

  • IBM is offering free tools through The Weather Channel mobile app and Weather.com to track reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. drilled down to the state and county level by using IBM Watson to analyze data from the World Health Organization and national, state, and local governments. Visit the dashboard here.
  • IBM is making the Watson Assistant for Citizens available to government agencies and organizations at no charge for 90 days and will assist with initial setup. This virtual assistant is pre-loaded to field common inquiries about COVID-19 from constituents—such as school closures, nearby testing stites, and transportation options. Watson Assistant can help users quickly through voice or chat by dynamically updating local information from the CDC and other authorities. Follow this link to request access.

Microsoft

  • Microsoft Teams enables remote work. It is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines workplace chat, audio conferencing, video meetings, and file storage. To help organizations, the company is offering a range of free and premium options for Teams access.
  • Microsoft has offered its Healthcare Bot service powered by Microsoft Azure to health care organizations on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response to help screen patients for potential infection and care. Read more about the COVID-19 assessment bot here.
  • Microsoft is offering an Emergency Response solution through its Power Apps service to health care providers and hospitals. Microsoft is offering this solution and six months of free usage of the full Power Apps capabilities to organizations in the health care, government, non-profit, and education sectors that are responding to the COVID-19 crisis. The Emergency Response solution includes:
    • Mobile apps for frontline staff to track critical supplies on hand (such as hospital beds or ventilators), report the current status of RN staff and equipment in use, communicate needs and request additional personnel, and report positive COVID-19 cases.
    • Decision support dashboard that allows emergency managers to aggregate data, track key metrics, and identify urgent needs for beds, equipment, and staffing.
    • Web app for hospital administrators to quickly add capacity, edit and customize mobile app features, and manage system-wide data analysis.
    • Read more about how your organization can implement the Emergency Response solution here.

Salesforce

  • Salesforce is offering free access to Health Cloud for qualified emergency response teams, call centers, and care management teams for health systems affected by COVID-19.
  • Tableau, a subsidiary of Salesforce, has developed a free COVID-19 Data Resource Hub to help organizations make data-driven decisions relating to the virus using resources compiled from the WHO, the CDC, and Johns Hopkins University.
  • Salesforce is making Quip Starter—a collaborative document and spreadsheet tool that helps remote teams work together effectively—available for free to any Salesforce customer or non-profit organization through September 30, 2020. Learn more about Quip here.

ServiceNow

  • ServiceNow helps governments and companies transform old, manual ways of working into modern digital workflows. To help governments put in place critical emergency response and crisis management workflows, the company is making four free, open-sourced apps available:
  • Emergency Response Operations– This app was created by Washington State’s Department of Health to manage the COVID-19 situation, and they are donating it for use by other organizations and public agencies. This app supports operational processes of emergency response and preparedness at the state and local government level. It helps optimize resources and staff in critical locations, and follows federal regulations required for emergency funding and reimbursement.
  • Emergency Outreach– This workflow uses a mobile app to help organizations connect with employees and assess the impact on their workers. Employers can reach out by email or push notification to provide information and safety measures and get a response to confirm if employees are safe, and where they are located.
  • Emergency Self Report– This workflow helps an employee notify their employer that they are going into quarantine and helps the employee safely return to work.
  • Emergency Exposure Management – When an employee has been diagnosed with an illness, this workflow helps the employer identify other people who might have been exposed based on the employee’s meetings and location.

Twilio

  • Twilio is a cloud communication platform that helps governments and businesses engage constituents and customers across channels – text, voice, video, and more. For government agencies, Twilio is offering discounts on services through its partners’ GSA Schedule 70 and other contracting vehicles.
  • Public services, health organizations, and NGOs are using Twilio to improve their COVID-19 response initiatives:
    • Reduce public health hotline backlogs and wait times: Deploying automated chatbots and other self-service capabilities to share public service information and answer frequently asked questions will put the right information in the hands of citizens faster and more efficiently, while freeing specialists to tackle the complex requests only they can handle.
    • Combat misinformation with proactive alerts: Proactive SMS, voice, and email notifications enable organizations to keep their constituents up to date on the latest information based on trusted sources of public health..
    • Reach more people by using preferred communication channels: Effective containment of the virus is largely dependent on providing everyone in Coronavirus-affected areas with the right trusted information to protect themselves and their families. This requires delivering your message over channels where end-users in need of assistance prefer to communicate.
    • Automate appointment reminders and scheduling: You can set up reminders via email, text, and/or voice to reduce no shows and ensure that appointment slots which are canceled can be offered to others. Many organizations also offer a text in option to schedule appointments in the first place.
  • For non-profits and social impact organizations, Twilio.org offers benefits through its Impact Access Program. More information is available here.

Tags: COVID-19