Heroes Code: Tech’s Massive Mobilization Against Covid

Heroes are forged in crisis. 

And this year, the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic and social turmoil have created a global factory for champions. We’ve seen hospital staff, paramedics and other front-line responders rise up under incredibly stressful, life-and-death conditions. We’ve recognized the vital contributions of grocery clerks, factory employees and school teachers as the phrase “essential workers” entered everyday conversation. And we’ve seen unparalleled acceleration of therapeutic and vaccine research, in partnerships between the pharmaceutical industry and governments.

The heroic efforts of our technology workers have been less discussed. Tech and the people behind it have stood up in the face of massive pressure, have made it possible for educators to teach, for scientists to do research, for hospitals to manage complex supply chains, and for business to pivot to new digital approaches. And this is the year that the cloud and data became essential services.

It’s a miracle the Internet did not collapse under the massive increase in usage. 

When I speak of tech workers, I’m not specifically talking about employees at Google or AWS, at Intel or Splunk. I’m talking about the IT organization at your insurance company and the data security team at your bank. The developers who created the online interface that let you buy groceries online. The DevOps teams that handled ecommerce surges as brick-and-mortar retail moved online, or scaled up video conferencing and other collaborative applications to allow the sudden shift to remote work.

When was the last time such a broadly defined industry mobilized itself toward securing and enabling so many crucial elements of our society — and the basic economic functioning of society itself? 

Not since World War II have we seen anything close to this level of industry mobilization in terms of response, speed and scale. Eighty years later, it’s a very different world, one driven by data. Our world runs on technologies that connect individuals, organizations and communities like never before. The challenges presented to technologists by the pandemic shutdown were literally unprecedented. In entire regions and nations, offices shut down in days and workers had to do their jobs from home. No warning, no pregamed plan for a contingency like this — just go. 

The transition was not entirely smooth. There were surges, shortages and outages, but overall, the results have been impressive. Consider Zoom, which had seen itself as a provider of video conferencing software to enterprise customers. Demand for its services surged — from 10 million daily meeting participants in December to 300 million in April — and its user base expanded from the enterprise to consumers and educators. Kids were taking virtual classes, friends shared an onscreen glass of wine to unwind, and families were speaking to sick and aging family members in healthcare facilities that could no longer allow visitors.

Across the board, technology is empowering our COVID response. In June, ecommerce was up 76% versus the year before, and 42% of the U.S. labor force was working from home — up from just 5% in 2017. Think about how hard it is to enable and secure tens of millions of workers as they shift from the office to home in a matter of days. The flexibility, adaptability, speed and pure grit shown by technology professionals is stunning.

And adoption of collaborative technologies is skyrocketing: Along with Zoom’s surge, Microsoft reported a 70% increase in users of its Teams software, while Google Meet, Cisco’s WebEx and other platforms all report significant growth. Slack has seen an 80% increase in new paying customers compared to the year before. And social media and entertainment: Usage of Netflix, LinkedIn, Facebook and TikTok are all up about 25%, while Peloton saw a 66% increase in indoor athletes. (I’ve been one of them for years now.)

The providers of the hardware and software services that make all this possible are powering hospitals, sustaining the education of our children, providing lifelines to shuttered retailers, and preserving jobs in nearly every industry. Their partners in this success are the IT teams within those diverse organizations who are racing to increase capacity, outfit newly home-based workers, adapt security protocols, and launch new technology solutions, all in a fraction of the time such changes would have been implemented in less dire circumstances.

Now we must turn to the future. The virus has proven more difficult to contain than we might have hoped. Some countries have failed to marshal an effective, disciplined strategy at all, while recognized leaders are seeing menacing new outbreaks despite their best efforts. By such measures, a pessimistic outlook on 2021 might seem inevitable. 

But I am an optimist. And I think I have good reason to be. Look at our first responders and front-line workers who are saving lives and maintaining the basic infrastructure of our physical world. Look at the millions of tech workers expanding capacity, creating new products and features, adapting to new realities and maintaining reliable data security. I am thankful every day for everyone, from the front line to the back end, who is keeping our society functioning. And I’m proud to be part of one of the vital industries that will get us through this crisis to a better, more prosperous and resilient future.

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