This post was originally published on this site
A year to the day that COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in the U.S., inexorably changing the way Americans live, Adobe Inc. said it is partnering with government agencies in all 50 states to supply detailed information about vaccinations and going back to work.
On Thursday, Adobe ADBE, -0.49% — which established its name in desktop publishing in the 1980s but has since branched out — announced its most significant update yet to its Government Rapid Response Program, established in March 2020. And it became just the latest tech giant to lend its expertise in the fight against COVID.
“The pandemic greatly accelerated efforts to improve government services online,” Jace Johnson, vice president of government affairs and public policy at Adobe, told MarketWatch, in describing Adobe’s efforts to build on existing technology solutions in all 50 states.
Adobe is aligning state and local governments not just for COVID-related issues, but any type of services related to transportation, health care, driver registration, and applying for benefits and permits. Such is the appetite for government information, according to Johnson.
Indeed, Adobe’s push comes as more citizens clamor for information from government agencies. More than one-third (36%) said they used online government services for the first time because of the pandemic, based on an Adobe survey of 1,080 people Feb. 10-13. The survey found first-time users were younger (52% of millennial and 49% of Gen Z vs. 36% of Gen X and 14% of boomers), and more focused on research on topics like COVID-19.
What’s more, 76% said it would make their lives easier if all government services were available online.
Adobe offered several examples of its government installations. The Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services, the largest agency of its kind in the U.S. with nearly 14,000 employees, is using Adobe Experience Cloud to revamp its website, which acts as a digital “front door.”
In Utah, a telework initiative initially to reduce government spending and improve efficiencies has become an essential service, allowing more than 2,500 employees to serve Utah residents and help turn around more than 5,000 documents in the first 30 days. Meanwhile, in November, government agencies’ use of Adobe Sign, a cloud-based e-signature service, was up 250% year-over-year.
The endeavors of Adobe mirror those of hundreds of tech companies that have stepped up efforts with government and health-care customers to make information easily available on COVID-19 and other services during an unprecedented digital transformation of the economy.
From Salesforce.com Inc. CRM, +0.20% in Silicon Valley and Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -0.58% in Seattle to Honeywell International Inc. HON, +2.55% in Charlotte, N.C., and International Business Machines Corp. IBM, +2.97% in Armonk, N.Y., tech companies nationwide are offering expertise in tackling a logistical task — the vaccination of hundreds of millions of people — that some have compared with the moon landing.
Read more: ‘The biggest data puzzle of our lifetime’ — Vaccine distribution effort gets help from Big Tech
