Unisys Corporation has announced that it has been accepted to provide Cloud Transition Services based on Unisys CloudForte to New Zealand government agencies through Marketplace, Unisys announced on Tuesday.

“The New Zealand government has committed to making it easy for citizens to engage with the government using secure, smart and seamless digital services. This includes a requirement to use public cloud services in preference to traditional IT systems,” said Shirley Harrod, vice president, Public Sector, for Unisys Asia Pacific.

Marketplace will connect suppliers with the government, simplifying the procurement process for both sectors. The Marketplace will expedite the initial primary procurement process and reduce the obstacles for suppliers that work with the government.

Unisys’ Marketplace Cloud Transition Services will include cloud strategy, architecture, migration planning, transition execution, cloud optimization and operational handover of current end user services into a public or hybrid cloud environment. The company’s CloudForte will supply a comprehensive array of services designed to successfully transform client organizations to a cloud environment.

“However, successful cloud adoption requires alignment with the business transformation strategy and desired business outcomes. Unisys CloudForte services are designed to help organizations accelerate their cloud adoption, no matter where they are in the cloud journey – from legacy migration to new cloud design and deployment for hybrid and multi-cloud environments,” added Harrod.

Unisys’ research has indicated that a holistic approach to cloud transformation, rather than a ‘lift and shift’ approach, is fundamental for helping organizations achieve the business benefits and outcomes they expect.

According to the Unisys Cloud Success Barometer, the top reason more than half of New Zealand organizations reported they had not realized notable benefits from cloud computing, was because they had not integrated their migration plan into their broader business transformation strategy.

Unisys CloudForte is designed to enable and support the holistic IT and organizational change required to integrate cloud adoption into the overall business strategy. “Security compliance is build-in from the outset as CloudForte Compliance™ incorporates Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) principles and tools. Being part of Marketplace streamlines the process for government agencies to review and access our CloudForte services,” Harrod concluded.

In addition to Unisys’ support with New Zealand’s cloud program, the company also announced that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has selected the company to continue to provide private hybrid cloud services as well as an integrated security framework and related disaster recovery services through the Pa. Compute Services (PACS) contract, Unisys reported in March 2020.

The two-year contract extension, worth up to $144 million, was awarded in the fourth quarter of 2019. Under the contract, Unisys will continue to support the part of the Commonwealth’s secure hybrid cloud environment that includes the ability to access and pay for IT services.

“We look forward to continuing to provide value through the PACS agreement to help the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania achieve its goals by adopting a hybrid cloud model and securing critical data at a lower cost to citizens,” said Michael Morrison, vice president and general manager for Unisys Enterprise Solutions Americas.

Unisys will support Pennsylvania’s digital government initiatives and provide continuity in the delivery of vital systems and data center operations for state agencies and citizens. The contract extends work first awarded to Unisys in 2014.

In addition, the company will continue to provide managed services for mainframe support, storage, security and containers; related command center services; disaster recovery management; database services and facilities management.

“As a Pennsylvania-based company, Unisys is proud of its longstanding relationship with the Commonwealth, as well as our solid service record and our ability to bring unique innovative solutions to state agencies,” added Morrison.

About Unisys 

Unisys is a global information technology company that builds high-performance, security-centric solutions for the most digitally demanding businesses and governments. Unisys offerings include security software and services; digital transformation and workplace services; industry applications and services; and innovative software operating environments for high-intensity enterprise computing.

To support the newly automated and more agile workforce, UiPath, will offer healthcare organizations free robotic process automation (RPA) software to accelerate critical processes to rapidly respond to issues in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced on Tuesday.

“Never has there been more need for software robots to assist hospitals with huge volumes of medical tests processing… As businesses face the realities of working in an economic downturn, they’ll adapt their business models with automation, enabling them to scale up robots rather than scale down human employees,” said UiPath co-founder and CEO Daniel Dines.

UiPath will also offer its Automation Hub, free of cost, for one year. With the tool, enterprises can capture automation ideas from staff to build an automation pipeline that will support employee needs as they work remotely, including UiPath Task Capture to record tasks and document processes.

RPA will provide relief to overwhelmed organizations, and has been integrated into UiPath customer software to help manage the high volume of testing requests, including automating the check-in process in the healthcare industries which has eliminated human error and allowed digital paperwork to be processed quickly and accurately.

In addition, the RPA has reduced wait time for testing requests, where an attended robot can execute a testing transaction in 15 seconds, down from 2.5 minutes for a human. The software will also fill orders for necessities faster to meet the exponential increase in demand for certain items.

RPA robots will process all orders and enter them into SAP to transport the order to the manufacturing center faster. UiPath’s solution will also support the increased need in call centers. Agents supported by RPA will pull customer data faster, ensuring a faster call triage process, faster routing to the appropriate agents and reduced average call handling time.

“We’re heavily invested right now in helping combat the spread of COVID-19 with the help of our RPA platform and providing our customers timely support as they transition to new operating models,” added Dines.

About UiPath

UiPath is leading the “automation first” era – championing a robot for every person and enabling robots to learn new skills through AI and machine learning. Through free and open training, UiPath is led by a commitment to bring digital era skills to millions of people around the world, thereby improving business productivity and efficiency, employee engagement and customer experience.

The company’s hyperautomation platform combines the #1 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to scale digital business operations at unprecedented speed. The company has already automated millions of repetitive, mind-numbing tasks for businesses and government organizations all over the world including approximately 50% of the Fortune 500.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed a new program across public, academic and private sectors to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration reported on Tuesday. 

“The FDA is announcing a new, comprehensive public-private approach to bring coronavirus treatments to market as fast as possible," said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. "As part of this new program, the FDA is cutting red tape, redeploying staff and working day and night to review requests from companies, scientists and doctors who are working toward therapies.

The program is designed to expedite the development of potentially safe and effective life-saving treatments. The Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program (CTAP) will utilize new tools to develop and deliver therapies to sick patients as quickly as possible, as well as support research to further evaluate whether the treatments are safe and effective for treating patients with COVID-19. 

The facilities that will participate in the program include NanoViricides, Inc., Moderna, Inc., Gilead Sciences, Inc., Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Dynavax Technologies Corporation.

In addition to FDA’s program development, the administration also announced that companies across the globe will shift its technologies to help fight the spread of coronavirus, including Biotricity, CytoDyn, Amazon, Clorox and Sorrento Therapeutics. 

At the companies, existing modern solutions in diagnostics and monitoring treatments will be repurposed and being used as tools to help fight the current pandemic. These technologies can help identify outbreak hotspots, prevent infections and reduce the need for physical contact in diagnostics.  

The FDA recently issued an update allowing certain remote diagnostic tools to be used in the fight. The update said: '"Today, as part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ongoing efforts to address the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), the agency issued a new policy that allows manufacturers of certain FDA-cleared non-invasive, vital sign-measuring devices to expand their use so that health care providers can use them to monitor patients remotely.”

The devices include those that measure body temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate and blood pressure.  

"Allowing these devices to be used remotely can help health care providers access information about a patient's vital signs while the patient is at home, reducing the need for hospital visits and minimizing the risk of exposure to coronavirus," said FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D. 

Amazon and Conduent Incorporated, a business process services and solutions company, recently announced that its disease surveillance and outbreak management platform, Maven, will be available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

Conduent's Maven solution was recently refigured to help public health agencies securely engage patients, and track, manage and report on cases and potential exposures of coronavirus (COVID-19).  

Given the critical need to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S., where Maven is primarily used, Conduent is waiving the software license fee for the Maven COVID-19 module through June 30, 20201 for the qualified state- and territorial-level public health agencies as a means to enable the agencies in the fight against COVID-19.

"This policy reflects the FDA's commitment to ease burdens on health care providers and facilities as they face this public health emergency. Such devices include technologies capable of enabling remote interactions to provide crucial information to be used as an adjunctive when health care providers diagnose or treat COVID-19 or co-existing conditions.," added Abernethy.

About FDA  

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.