“You may not have heard much about the U.S. Digital Service‘s role as the nation battles the spread of the coronavirus, but the federal government’s tech surge team has had its hands in some of the administration’s most pressing efforts behind the scenes.”
“The USDS has some team members embedded in the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Administrator Matt Cutts said last week during a Partnership for Public Service webinar.”
“’So whenever you see Ambassador [Deborah] Birx presenting slides and showing data sometimes going down to a county level, oftentimes that data is derived from or even prepared by the U.S. Digital Service,’ Cutts said. ‘So in terms of deciding allocations of things like [personal protective equipment] or ventilators, those sorts of things.’”
“The U.S. Digital Service was founded after the 2014 Healthcare.gov website rollout fiasco as an injection of tech talent into government to solve big problems that affect the critical services Americans depend on. So it’s no surprise that during the pandemic, the team is staying very busy.”
“Cutts said the team has also been assisting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with overhauling some of its website architecture as it publishes important information and data on the spread of the coronavirus.”
“The team is also working with the Small Business Administration as it delivers loans to companies affected by the economic downturn. The SBA has had its hands full after nearly 8,000 companies looking for relief may have had their personal information exposed through the agency’s loan portal.”
“On top of that, USDS has team members ‘slotted in’ at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Department of Homeland Security ‘helping people do remote work,’ Cutts said…”
“USDS is pitching in at the state and local levels, too…” Read the full article here.
Source: How the U.S. Digital Service is helping during the coronavirus pandemic – By Billy Mitchell, April 23, 2020. FedScoop.
