Technology Resources
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is committed to helping our partners scale change faster through technology. To help ensure the safety, connectivity, and productivity of our broader community, we’ve assembled a collection of technology resources to help organizations continue driving their work forward with tools that help support a remote workforce.
Note: This is a list of vendors that CZI has identified as having COVID-19 related offerings which may be useful for our grant and partner community. CZI is not specifically recommending or endorsing any of the vendors or tools listed here.
Staying Productive
Most of these technology products and services are offered at low-or no-cost in light of COVID-19 and are specifically geared towards collaboration.
Note: Select the products you’re interested in below to learn more about available offers, eligibility, and sign-up.
Staying Safe
Not sure if your devices, sensitive data, or communications are properly secured? Here are some easy-to-use tools and features available in light of COVID-19 to support your IT and information security.
Note: Select the products you’re interested in below to learn more about available offers, eligibility, and sign-up.
Staying Connected
Distance can create challenges with connectivity. Check out the following tools to make sure you stay connected.
Note: Select the products you’re interested in below to learn more about available offers, eligibility, and sign-up.
Zoom offers Basic licenses for free. Organizations can sign up directly on Zoom’s website.
Please note:
- There is no cloud recording (only local)
Zoom has temporarily waived this for K-12 Schools to help support distance learning. For eligible organizations, you can sign-up by first completing this School Verification Form.
If your organization would prefer licenses with features included in premium tiers, Zoom Account Representatives will extend 50% discounts for a short period of time for any paid tier.
If your organization would like to set up a trial account, sign up with Zoom basic (see Option 1) and Zoom Account Representatives can assign licenses to the trial account (which expands features offered during the trial).
Recently, Google announced that they’re expanding connectivity capabilities for organizations that do not have G Suite Enterprise (hint: If you have GSuite for Education or GSuite for Nonprofits, you have GSuite Basic).
This offering is available through July 2020, and provides access to Google Hangouts Meet and Chat for teams’ to virtually collaborate.
Here are some helpful support resources:
Google Hangouts for Remote Learning: To review Google Hangouts features specifically created with teachers and students in mind, check out how to set up Meet for distance learning here.
Microsoft is offering a free 6-month trial of Microsoft Teams, which includes Group chat, video conferencing, and collaboration on Microsoft Office files. User limits will temporarily be waived during this period.
Existing Business users can request six-month trials of the Premium Teams version.
Here’s additional information on how to sign-up and get started.
Cisco is offering free 90-day trials for:
- Video conferencing via WebEx, including support for up to 100 participants and no time restriction,
- DNS protection via Umbrella to protect mobile workers on/off VPN,
- Secure access via MFA/Duo,
- VPN via Cisco AnyConnect
For a nominal fee, organizations can buy virtual ASA to terminate the VPN connections.
Additional Resources:
Slack is an instant messaging tool that is very effective when it comes to working closely and quickly with your team.
It’s a quick alternative to sending a longer, often more formal email. You can set a status on Slack so colleagues know when you are active, working or taking a break.
Getting Started
Slack offers a free version of their tool (for less than 250 people), though many features are limited to paid. There are reduced pricing packages available for Education and Nonprofits.
Here are a few resources that may be helpful:
- It may be helpful for you to learn how to Create a Channel in Slack to keep your messages in one location, similar to having a private meeting room for your team.
- Remote work with Slack
- Remote Work Tips
Facebook Workplace offers its Essentials Plan for free, including tools for workplace chat, group or select video calls, file storage, and project groups.
To check it out and get started, click here.
Salesforce is offering a Care Response Solution for healthcare systems experiencing an influx of requests due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes free six-month access to Salesforce Health Cloud and auxiliary services.
For more details, here’s the full announcement.
Asana is offering COVID-19-affected businesses, specifically organizations with 501c3-status working on the front lines of research and testing, free one-year subscriptions to Asana Business. New and current Asana Basic customers are eligible for this upgrade.
To get started, complete this form.
Airtable is giving all newly-remote students free access to Airtable Pro, as well as 3 free months for any humanitarian, non-political project using Airtable to help support COVID-19 response efforts.
For more details, including eligibility and training resources, here’s the full announcement.
Quip Starter will be available for free to any Salesforce customer or non-profit organization through September 30, 2020.
To learn more and sign up, click here.
Box is offering a free 90-day trial (starting March 12, 2020) of Box Business, which includes unlimited storage, a 5GB file upload limit, and advanced user and security settings.
To get started, click here. Additional resources for Admins and Users are available for free on the Box Education community page.
Adobe Creative Cloud for Education. Adobe is offering higher education and K-12 institutions the ability to request temporary “at home” access for their students and educators using Creative Cloud apps.
This will be granted through May 31, 2020 at no additional cost. To request access or learn more, click here.
Adobe Connect. Adobe is offering free 90-day access to their web conferencing solution through July 1, 2020. To learn more, click here.
1Password is extending their default trial period from 30 day to 6 months for Team and Business accounts. Any business signing up for a new 1Password account will get that automatically.
To get started, click here.
Webinars:
Cisco is offering free 90-day trials for:
- Video conferencing via WebEx, including support for up to 100 participants and no time restriction,
- DNS protection via Umbrella to protect mobile workers on/off VPN,
- Secure access via MFA/Duo,
- VPN via Cisco AnyConnect
For a nominal fee, organizations can buy virtual ASA to terminate the VPN connections.
Additional Resources:
CrowdStrike is offering 2 benefits to existing customers through May 16, 2020:
- Burst licensing. CrowdStrike will expand licenses (up to 10% of current subscription) so long as they fall in the same category as your existing module (i.e. Falcon Complete).
- Falcon Prevent. This is for home use, and provides coverage for employees using personal devices. This only applies to Windows machines and is limited to the next-generation antivirus product only, but there is no
device limit.
Click here for details.
SecurityScorecard has a Non-Profit offering that allows organizations to monitor themselves (and up to 5 organizations) for free.
Organizations will be able to “invite” colleagues, vendors and other partners to the platform for no additional cost.
CloudFlare helps businesses protect their devices, internal applications, and networks. In response to COVID-19, CloudFlare for Teams is available for free for small businesses (up to 500 seats available).
This offer is available through September 1, 2020, and includes an optional, free 30-minute onboarding session.
To get started, click here.
AT&T has removed usage caps for its home broadband internet service, which means customers that go over the old limit will not be subject to overage fees. The company also reminded people that its public wifi hotspots are still open to all.
Comcast has made its Xfinity Wifi hotspots accessible for free to everyone, including non-Xfinity Internet customers. You can view a map of all Xfinity hotspots here. Once you’re in a hotspot’s vicinity, find and select the “xfinitywifi” network name in the list of available hotspots.
Along with a host of other data providers, Comcast is giving all its customers unlimited data for the next 60 days.
For the company’s Internet Essentials program, which services low-income families, new customers will have access to the program for free for 60 days. The program normally costs $9.95 per month. Comcast has also permanently increased the base Internet speed for all existing and new Internet Essential customers. Find out more about eligibility and applying for the service here.
As of March 18, Sprint is upgrading customers with existing data plans to unlimited data for 60 days. Customers will also have access to an additional 20GB of mobile hotspot data for free.
As of March 17, Sprint had waived per-minute toll charges on long-distance calls to countries the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have designated as Level 3 because of the spread of the coronavirus. You can find a list of those countries here.
T-Mobile is upgrading customers to free unlimited smartphone data for the next 60 days if they already have a phone plan that includes data, the company announced in an open letter.