Amid the spread of the novel coronavirus, it’s more vital than ever for the public sector to rely upon technology to share crucial—even life-saving—information with the nation.
OZ is deeply invested in our local community of South Florida, and one of our latest solutions, Immerse, is our small part to try and help protect the people and businesses located here.
OZ has taken the initiative to develop digital solutions to fill gaps and ease any remote work concerns. Immerse, is a service that can facilitate and run remote workshops and innovation/collaboration sessions for clients and/or prospects. Within, Immerse allows for agenda development and easily incorporates outputs in PowerPoint, Word and/or Excel. This service will leverage a package meeting facilitation software that is more sophisticated than Zoom and the like.
In addition to Immerse, companies can look to OZ to help implement technology solutions to improve experiences in the Public Sector.
Meanwhile, the world’s biggest tech firms, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Microsoft, are working hard to maintain the flow of vital information. This week, the White House met with these tech giants to ask for their coordinated help in the fight against coronavirus — with the end goal that tech resources will supplement the government’s efforts to track the outbreak, disseminate accurate information and assist Americans who are out of work or school due to COVID-19.
To share accurate information, federal agencies need to be able to collect, distribute and act upon patient information. They need a strong, multiplatform web application that can deliver this information in as close to real-time as possible. With the world watching, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at John Hopkins University has created a worldwide data map of global confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries from the coronavirus.
Higher education can still remain open — only virtually with the help of technology. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has offered guidance to colleges and universities across America on how to cope with campus closures, class cancellations and the transition to courses offered online. The timing of this pandemic comes for many of these institutions near the end of a quarter or semester. Most universities have opted to switch to online classes rather than in-person courses. Some institutions have elected to extend their spring breaks by a week to several weeks until the coronavirus slows its progression, allowing them to create a better online-only education opportunity so students can continue with their education goals. And higher–education institutions were early leaders in canceling study-abroad programs. Data has shown that high-risk areas in Europe and Asia are popular locations for studying abroad, and the institutions were able to quickly track students they needed to reach to return home.
Going forward, the public sector needs to be leaders in all of this and still provide great customer service. They must ensure employees have adequate tech resources to continue working from home while encouraging employees who are sick with COVID-19 to not put others at risk and provide adequate sanitation to its public offices and buildings. The most important task when it comes to the citizens they serve: share information and recommendations from our public health authorities, so there is a consistent message to prevent confusion and panic.