grant applications in 76 minutes
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users per minute peak traffic
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the average annual load processed in 1 hour
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In normal times, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) issues around 300 loans over the course of a year. But these are extraordinary times. With $15M in grants and loans suddenly made available through the State’s COVID-19 response programs, the EDA needed to build new apps to process loan and grant applications, fast. The apps had to be built quickly (in a matter of days), and needed to perform rapidly (e.g., process 10,000+ applications per hour).
How does a government agency immediately scale up from apps that issue 300 loans in a year to apps that could handle more than 30X the average annual load in just an hour? They call in the state’s Office of Innovation: a two-pizza sized team of self-proclaimed “tech nerds” that thrive on high-pressure situations like this. More officially, the team “works in partnership with the Governor’s Office and State agencies to create innovative policies and technologies that address complex public problems by working differently: [they] apply data science and public engagement to understand problems, and use the latest digital technologies combined with strategic policies to develop solutions that improve services while also reducing costs for the State and the taxpaying public.”