States scramble to repair unemployment systems, build public-health apps

In the first installment published Friday of Scoop News Group’s weekly video wrap-up, StateScoop’s associate publisher and director of strategic initiatives, Jake Williams, reviews how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting state and local government technology efforts, from the heightened pressure on unemployment systems to the privacy concerns surrounding states’ contact-tracing initiatives.

“This is a really interesting moment because … we’ve been covering state and local govermment CIOs talking about legacy modernization for the entirety of our existence and this is one of the first times where the need for digital transformation and the need for these legacy systems to be rapidly modernized to help citizens in need has to come head with a real-world crisis,” Williams says in the video, joined by FedScoop Editor-in-Chief Billy Mitchell and CyberScoop Editor-in-Chief Greg Otto.

The pandemic also drove officials in New York this week to announce new apps, developed with help from Microsoft and Apple, to provide the public information and tools to screen themselves for COVID-19 to determine if they should seek further testing.