Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) was forced to close and halt instruction for two days this week after it suffered from a cyberattack, according to the Iowa school district.  

The state of Iowa is investing more than $500,000 to prepare K-12 teachers in 136 school districts and nonpublic schools to teach computer science.

Eight states – Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah – will offer residents digital driver’s licenses for Apple devices.

After a long day of driving, Iowa’s plow drivers used to have to drive back to a garage to enter their time on a timesheet. The drive could be a considerable number of miles, said the state’s chief data officer (CDO). But not anymore after a move to a cloud-based system.

An apparent series of interconnected failures surrounding the use of a key vote-tallying phone app – plus delays associated with a phone-reporting backup system – derailed the reporting of the Iowa Democratic Caucus results last night, even as more states and localities are preparing to add app technologies to some aspects of their election processes.

In a move to modernize its police force, the City of Davenport, Iowa has implemented a “more efficient infrastructure for its virtual desktop infrastructure” that has enabled the city to optimize the use of police cars and law enforcement resources, as well as improve the accessibility of police video footage.

Successful smart city initiatives rely on cities collaborating with each other, the Federal government, the private sector, and citizens, according to city mayors and Federal experts who spoke at the Global City Teams Challenge Expo on Aug. 28.

State and Federal representatives testified to the need for a first responder-only network and offered their support of FirstNet’s efforts during a recent Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing.

Connected Nation, an organization committed to bringing affordable Internet to Americans, announced that Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa won the Connected Nation Broadband Visionary Award.