More and more, it seems like there isn’t a single human endeavor that can’t be touched by technology. Now, publishing company John Wiley & Sons Inc. is transforming how institutions, professionals, corporations and students access informational/educational resources.

“Wiley drives the world forward with research in education through publishing and services,” said Sean D. Mack (pictured), chief information officer and chief information security officer of Wiley. “We help researchers, professionals, students, universities and corporations to achieve their goals. Wiley’s primarily known as a publishing company, but really now more than ever, we’re a tech-enabled research and education company, and we have three major areas of impact, research, education and professional learning.”

Mack spoke with Natalie Erlich, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during PagerDuty Summit. They discussed the pandemic and its impact on education and publishing as the world moves toward thorough digitization. (* Disclosure below.)

COVID and the evolving educational space

With the pandemic’s emergence, there has been an increase in the pace at which different sectors have raced toward embracing the benefits of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Niches like energy, healthcare management and now education are leading this ever-growing pack.

From being known as a simple publishing company, Wiley has purposefully recalibrated its business model to its very core and now also charts a path as a digitized research and education company.

“It’s been amazing to be part of education and research during this pandemic, during a time when these things have never really been more important. For a long time, we’d been building these online and computer-based education platforms and really trying to get folks to move there. And that’s been a long, long process. The pandemic has really accelerated that,” Mack stated.

Wiley has seen a profound increase in the usage of its online education platforms with the onset of the pandemic — but it has definitely not been the only one. With the number of businesses that have been given a “digitization boost” by the pandemic, maybe there’s a bit of opportunity in every tragedy after all.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of PagerDuty Summit 2021. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for PagerDuty Summit. Neither PagerDuty Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE