Covid-19: Key takeaways for digital teams

Source: Apolitical Published: April 22, 2020

Government digital services have proven critical to the pandemic response so far. Virtually every key government response in this crisis relies on digital elements. The operational pace of launching new services has been intense.

This has included anything from standing up new services to provide emergency funds, helping people stay healthy by making critical information accessible online, reducing the strain on hospitals with web and mobile based self-assessment tools or laying the groundwork for a gradual reopening of society by developing contact tracing solutions.

To share best practices and discuss emerging challenges Public Digital and the Harvard Kennedy School co-hosted a gathering of over 60 individuals from digital teams from around 20 national and regional governments around the world. On the agenda were two mini-case studies: an example of collaboration and code-sharing across Canadian governments and the privacy and interoperability challenges involved in launching contract tracing apps.