SACRAMENTO, Calif., Nov. 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Center for Digital Government (CDG) announced the winners of the 2020 Digital Cities Survey. Now in its 20th year, the annual survey recognizes cities using technology to tackle social challenges, enhance services, strengthen cybersecurity, and more.
“Innovative cities are utilizing technology and analyzing data to better serve their citizens, respond quickly to citizen needs around COVID-19, and support digital experience initiatives,” said Phil Bertolini, co-director, CDG. “The Center for Digital Government congratulates this year’s winners for their hard work and efforts to use technology to enhance citizen interactions with government.”
This year’s first-place winners include:
- City of San Jose, Calif. (500,000 or more population category):
The IT team supports San Jose’s priority to create a thriving city. IT formed dozens of innovative, digital-inclusive partnerships; provided Smart City platforming; modernized planning, building code and code enforcement digital services; modernized the city’s web presence; connected “digital desert” households; reduced 311 language barriers and improved 911 response times. The city’s IT team also utilized data analytics to provide Vision Zero Crash Data to help reduce traffic-related deaths; created a virtual call center to conduct welfare checks on medically-vulnerable residents; and implemented COVID-19 testing for the community’s most vulnerable.
- City of Virginia Beach, Va. (250,000 – 249,999 population category):
Virginia Beach’s cloud-first strategy is exemplified by the innovative StormSense project, a regional collaboration comprised of 12 cities and educational institutions that provides modeling data for city public safety personnel and engineers to predict coastal flooding. An innovative methodology that uses analytics, cloud technologies and open data registries provides rapid visualizations for decision-making during adverse weather conditions.
- City of Bellevue, Wash. (125,000-249,999 population category):
Bellevue’s IT team established a digital government team that partners with all 14 city departments to develop and support citizen-centric solutions. The team created a Universal Design Guide with branding guidelines for the city and uses AI to analyze social media platform trends. During the pandemic, the team launched a COVID-19 chatbot in six languages and created maps showing food distribution centers and a "What's Open" map to support local businesses. - City of Sugar Land, Texas (75,000-124,999 population category):
The city formed an Office of Performance and Accountability and a Data Committee to deal with data needs and policies. It produced a “Goal Measures” transparent dashboard for 30 key operations that assists personnel in making data-driven decisions. Examples include determining whether and where to open an additional fire station and improving the city’s 311 call center with the assistance of an AI tool that collects performance metrics.
- City of Danville, Va. (up to 75,000 population category):
Danville’s comprehensive governance structure includes policy, enterprise IT budgeting, and centralized oversight of IT costs, purchases, and Service Level Agreements. The city’s approach to resiliency planning is a best practice. It includes quarterly testing and annual updates to its strategic plan, daily threat monitoring, collaboration with other departments, and taking actions based on ongoing testing and assessment.
CDG thanks the underwriters of this year’s survey: Akamai, Amazon Web Services, Crown Castle, EasyVote Solutions, Google Cloud, Laserfiche, Medallia Inc., Oracle, SHI, Spectrum Enterprise, TeamDynamix, Tyler Technologies, and Yubico.
View the full list of winners.
FUTURE READY AWARD 2020: The Future Ready Award, sponsored by Google Cloud, is presented to jurisdictions that are laying the foundation for the disruptive and converging forces that are shaping an uncertain future — through technology or process changes; innovation; engagement with partners; and by harnessing emerging technologies to solve problems.
CDG presented the Future Ready award to the City of Lynchburg, Va. Lynchburg’s alignment of its IT strategic plan with the goals of the citywide plan provides a foundation for the future. The city is engaged collaboratively with the school district and state agencies to solve problems through technology. Its move to the cloud for data recovery helps ensure a strong resilience program. Finally, Lynchburg is identifying and utilizing emerging technologies to solve problems such as monitoring rainfall and water levels at the dam to mitigate possible breaches, and expanding the use of AI and machine learning.
About the Center for Digital Government:
The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute focused on technology policy and best practices in state and local government. CDG is a division of e.Republic, the nation’s only media and research company focused exclusively on state and local government and education.
Contact:
Janet Grenslitt
Director of Surveys and Awards
e.Republic | Center for Digital Government
916-932-1363
jgrenslitt@erepublic.com