With the virus overwhelming many governments, technologists have jumped into action to build open source tools the public needs now. A new repository collects them in one place. From its start, the COVID-19 pandemic has been in large part a crisis of information. As schools and businesses closed and stay-at-home orders spread across the country,

A Q&A with Mark Lerner, who spearheaded the creation of New America’s new Pandemic Response Repository Earlier this month, after a frenzied few weeks of work, New America unveiled its Pandemic Response Repository. Mark Lerner, a New America fellow who works with the organization’s Public Interest Technology program and Digital Governance and Impact Initiative (DIGI),

Members of The Commons, If your inbox is anything like ours it is overflowing with other people’s ideas and inventions aimed at tracking and slowing the spread of COVID-19. (Interspersed with emails from seemingly every company you have interacted with online, ever.) In this second weekly edition of The Commons we’ve sifted through the noise

Members of The Commons, The pandemic has dramatically changed our lives in little more than a week. Uncertainty reigns as we all grapple with new public health restrictions and new ways of being together while apart. We at The Commons have been heartened to see the civic tech and gov tech communities spring into action,