Two years after the launch of its What Works Cities national initiative, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced its new Smart City certification. The What Works Cities Certification seeks to support local leaders in leveraging Smart City best practices, as well as reward achievements and provide a clear path to success.
A bill proposed in the Florida legislature would take away the authority of the Agency for State Technology to oversee statewide IT projects, which could ultimately drive up costs, according to Eric Larson, chief technology officer at AST.
L8NT recently launched a new software product to help law enforcement agencies recover stolen Wi-Fi devices.
The Government Accountability Office this month released a report indicating that the Department of Veterans Affairs had made limited progress to improve its health care since being added to the high-risk list in 2015. This limited progress led GAO to keep the VA health care system on the 2017 list for concerns over timeliness, quality, and safety of veterans’ health care.
The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s program to improve the state’s broadband connectivity will continue despite its contractor’s sudden declaration of bankruptcy, according Brian Noyes, Mass Tech’s director of research and communications.
The RAND Corporation released a study on the costs of direct-to-consumer telehealth services. The study found that direct-to-consumer telehealth may actually drive up medical spending rather than reduce costs, due to the increased convenience.
CityGrows is a cloud-based workflow and transparency platform for local governments. With a focus on helping governments transition from paper-based processes to a digital platform, CityGrows improves the experience of interacting with public services for constituents and government employees, while also increasing public access to information about how government works.
Cities need to develop open data policies, but that’s easier said than done. The Sunlight Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses technology and policy analysis to improve government transparency and accountability, recently released a free Open Data Policy Wizard.
Active shooter situations are becoming increasingly common, with 142 school shootings in the United States since 2013. 21st Century State & Local talked to four active shooter solution providers to understand what technology is available to schools and colleges and the importance of deploying technology before there is an incident.
Chris Connors, CEO of Shooter Detection Systems (SDS), stressed the importance of having zero false alerts with shot detection technology. SDS’s solution, dubbed the Guardian Indoor Active Shooter Detection System, boasts zero false alerts during its more than 16 million hours of use across the world. “It’s a major event when the sensor goes off, and we have to be right every time,” Connors said.
