Whether working remotely or expanding operations, city call centers have adapted to meet the demands of their environment.
When Buffalo, NY, closed its municioal buildings as part of a pandemic lockdown ind March 2020, Oswaldo Mestre had only two days to find a way to keep a vital line of communication open to residents.
As the city’s director of citizen services, Mestre manages Buffalo’s 311 contact center, which fields questions and complaints from citizens. Buffalo 311 includes an online portal and a mobile app, but its heart is a Cisco PBX call and resolution center previously run out of City Hall and staffed by workers who had been sent home for the duration of the city’s lockdown.
In the scramble that ensued, Mestre, his team and his partners were able to rescue 311 from interruption and get a glimpse of the future of the service. Today, contact center upgrades require technologies that are scalable and flexible, says Josh Streets, technology practice leader for the International Customer Management Institute. While Buffalo chose its solution to enable staffers to work remotely, similar technologies perhaps foretell the future of all contact centers. Contact centers are increasingly adopting Call Center as a Service and other modern communications solutions.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 07/19/2021
AGC’s new level of OGC membership supports advancing standards for cross-system interoperability and geospatial information sharing.
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is pleased to announce that the US Army Geospatial Center (AGC) has raised its membership in OGC to Principal level.
As a Principal Member of OGC, AGC will participate across OGC activities and serve in OGC's Planning Committee to help OGC advance geospatial interoperability and open systems.
“It’s great to see the US Army Geospatial Center upgrading their OGC Membership to Principal Level,” said OGC CEO Dr. Nadine Alameh. “AGC has long been a supporter of OGC’s innovation and standardization programs in areas ranging from Web Map Service (WMS) and GeoPackage, to more recent efforts leading Vector Tiles pilot projects and OGC’s emerging Routes and 3D GeoVolumes APIs. The AGC’s leadership on OGC APIs has helped greatly accelerate the development of these building blocks for open systems.”
“The US Army Geospatial Center is pleased to upgrade its OGC Membership to Principal Level,” said Josh Delmonico, Chief, Enterprise Support Branch. “The Army Geospatial Enterprise includes more than 100 Army systems that must share information, and OGC standards are a key capability as Army modernizes to meet future challenges.”
OGC Principal Members participate in final approval decisions for all OGC standards and nominations to the Board of Directors, and ensure OGC's policies and procedures remain effective and agile in a changing technological environment.
Read full story at OGC…
first published week of: 04/26/2021
In the latest database update based on the Critical Minerals List, the USGS has added Gallium to USMIN.
In the latest database update based on the Critical Minerals List, the USGS has added Gallium to USMIN.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has updated its USMIN Mineral Deposit Database (USMIN) for the mineral commodity gallium, one of 35 mineral commodities declared critical by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2018. The two deposits in this dataset occur in Alaska and Texas.
Gallium is used to manufacture integrated circuits and optoelectronic devices, which include laser diodes, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), photodetectors and solar cells. Gallium is primarily recovered as a byproduct of processing aluminum or zinc ores.
Read full story at USGS…
first published week of: 04/12/2021
How USGS Scientists Are Using Cutting Edge Tools to Revisit Mine Waste and Tailings for Resources
There’s an old saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. At the USGS, we’re taking another look at old mine waste and tailings to see if there might still be mineral potential in them. We recently looked at the potential for rare earth elements in historic mine waste of the eastern Adirondacks of New York, and we’ve even looked at how slag can be repurposed and how mine tailings can capture carbon for long-term storage. But now, the USGS is thinking bigger-how to use remote sensing to look for critical mineral and energy potential across larger scales using tools like satellites and hyperspectral analysis.
Read full story at USGS…
first published week of: 12/06/2021
The technology, also known as vehicle-to-everything or V2X, can help public safety agencies and citizens alike.
For many years now, as discussions around the Internet of Things and smart cities have proliferated along with the deployment of connected devices, there has been a relative lack of attention paid to objects that fill and filter through cities of all kinds: vehicles.
Cars, trucks and buses are as much a part of modern cities as traffic lights, and they are increasingly becoming connected to IoT networks. Thanks to maturing technology known as cellular-to-vehicle connectivity or cellular vehicle-to-everything (V2X) connectivity, cities and localities have increased opportunities to shape public safety and influence the ways vehicles interact with their infrastructure.
V2X is still an emerging technology, and most cars do not have it as standard feature. Still, it is becoming increasingly common, as Ford has committed to deploy cellular vehicle-to-everything connectivity in all new U.S. vehicle models starting in 2022.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 09/20/2021
Chief information officer Peter Wallace, who oversees central IT for Virginia Beach, Va., discusses responding to crises, working toward digital equity and the benefits of data sharing.
As CIO for Virginia Beach, Va., Peter Wallace has spent the past four years leading the coastal city’s central IT shop. The city’s tech and innovation work in that time has been diverse and wide-ranging, from a predictive analytics and data sharing partnership built around managing seasonal flooding to responding to a pair of unprecedented crises in as many years. GT recently spoke with Wallace about crisis response, lessons learned and what’s next for the department.
1. What have some of the major projects around the pandemic been for your office?
2. What lessons or programs will extend past the pandemic?
3. How has your office been able to work on digital equity and digital inclusion?
4. How has your traffic data sharing partnership evolved, and what’s ahead?
Answers GovTech…
first published week of: 08/02/2021
Starting next year, the state’s IT authority hopes to offer Artificial Intelligence as a Service across a range of functions and use cases.
Artificial intelligence is starting to grow up in Virginia. The commonwealth is planning to offer AI delivered as a service to a variety of state agencies, starting next year.
In 2022, the Virginia Information Technology Agency (VITA) plans to offer AI and machine learning software to other state agencies as well.
Virginia CIO Nelson Moe previewed the shift in October during the annual conference of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers . He said that he sees predictive analytics; operations management; decision support; and the prevention of fraud, waste and abuse as key use cases. “We want to take it up the value chain across the board,” Moe said during a panel on AI.
Virginia was looking to use a contractor to aid in AI deployment across state agencies. “We are looking for entities that will help us with the back end of the AI and tool selection and with helping us understand the state of the market of what’s out there in AI, because it’s changing,” Moe said.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 11/22/2021
Investments in intelligent transportation technology can have significant benefits for cities and residents.
For years, the United States’ infrastructure has failed to earn a grade of higher than C-. However, there is good news to report. With a potentially trillion-dollar infrastructure bill on the table, cities across America stand to be empowered to make significant modernization improvements that will raise the national infrastructure grade.
The drafted American Jobs Plan includes major spending in public transit infrastructure, roadways and safety, electric vehicles, passenger rail, and digital infrastructure — all critical pillars of efficient, connected smart cities.
The plan is broad and far-reaching, which raises a question: As federal funds become available, where should cities start? With many agencies and stakeholders involved, modernization efforts can seem overwhelming.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 06/14/2021
Moving to the public sector can mean culture shock for enterprise leaders. But some say the knowledge and connections gained in tech are worth it.
Public sector service may not appeal to enterprise technology leaders. After all, the government is known for its bureaucracy and outdated technology.
Yet, IT executives who have worked across the sectors insist government tenure is worth the effort despite challenges unique to the sector. Opportunities for innovation, career growth and serving the public drive technology leaders toward government service — and, for some, the motivation to keep going back.
"Almost all of the private sector executives I know that have come into government … are smart, they're hardworking, they're motivated, and they like to take on challenges and solve problems and make a difference," said Michael Howell, senior director of government initiatives at ACT-IAC and former deputy administrator for e-government and IT at the Office of Management and Budget. "And I wouldn't undercut that public service mission."
Read full story at CIODive…
first published week of: 07/05/2021
DevSecOps can help agencies spot security vulnerabilities early in their software development lifecycles.
Cybersecurity is as vital an issue as ever for federal agencies, especially following President Joe Biden’s recent signing of an executive order on the topic, which pushes agencies to bolster IT security defenses on several fronts.
One way that agencies can enhance the security of their applications and systems is through the adoption of a methodology called DevSecOps, a cousin to a similar approach, DevOps. With DevSecOps, security is baked into the software and service development of an agency from the start, and security teams work hand in glove with software developers and operations teams.
DevSecOps as a practice has taken off in the private sector, but it’s just starting to be deployed in the federal government, with the Defense Department and military service branches taking the lead.
Read full story at FedTech…
first published week of: 06/14/2021