Responsible computing during COVID-19 and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has both created and exacerbated a series of cascading and interrelated crises whose impacts continue to reverberate. From the immediate effects on people's health to the pressures on healthcare systems and mass unemployment, millions of people are suffering. For many who work in the digital technology industry, their first impulse may be to devise technological solutions to what they perceive as the most urgent problems when faced by crises such as these. Although the desire to put expertise to good use is laudable, technological solutions that fail to consider broader social, political, and economic contexts can have unintended consequences, undermining their efficacy and even harming the very communities that they are intended to help.