The U.S. Digital Response (USDR) is a new opportunity available to counties where requests can be submitted for assistance in the areas of data, digital and operational capacities of government. These volunteers come from technology backgrounds. Founded by former U.S. Deputy CTOs who have run federal open data policies and programs and launced the United States Digital Service in addition to working in the tech industry, the USDR Team includes:

• Reylene Yung, CEO – Recent Fellow with the Aspen Institute’s Tech Policy Hub, with experience with Stripe and Facebook
• Cori Zarek – Director of the Digital Service Collaborative at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, who previously served as the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer
• Jennifer Pahlka – Founder and Former Executive Director of Code for America, as well as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2013–2014
• Robin Carnahan – Former Missouri Secretary of State

The program matches certified volunteers with state and local government needs. These volunteers come from technology backgrounds including data science, front-end engineering, back-end engineering, product management, site reliability engineering and operations, user research and design, as well as other areas such as general management, manufacturing and production, logistics and supply chain, procurement, healthcare, public health and epidemiology, health diagnostics, and disaster relief and response.

As of yesterday, there are over 3,000 volunteers. In a very short period of time, these volunteers have helped to fill needs that include recently developed projects such as “Ask a Scientist” website for New Jersey. New Jersey created this website in collaboration with the Federation of American Scientists to answer the public’s questions about COVID-19. The code is open source and publicly available through GitHub, so anyone else can do the same.

For more information or to submit a request or volunteer, go to http://www.usdigitalresponse.org/.