NASCIO Recognizes Outstanding Achievements in State IT: Finalists Announced for 2015 NASCIO State IT Recognition Awards

LEXINGTON, Ky., Tuesday, August 11 — The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has selected 44 IT initiatives in 11 categories as finalists for the State IT Recognition Awards. This year’s high quality of nominations shows that states continue to innovate and achieve great results.

The prestigious awards program, in its 27th consecutive year, honors outstanding information technology achievements in the public sector. Four finalists have been named in each award category; one initiative per category will be announced as the award recipient at the upcoming NASCIO Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Projects and initiatives from NASCIO member states, territories, and the District of Columbia were eligible for nomination.  Finalists were selected by the NASCIO Awards Committee from a field of more than 100 nominees.

“Unlike many award programs that honor state IT projects, NASCIO awards are determined by peer review,” said James “Bo” Reese, CIO for the state of Oklahoma and Awards Committee co-chair.  “I believe this distinction is very meaningful to award finalists; it is a nod from your colleagues nation-wide that says you’re doing amazing work.”

“The importance of the awards program for state information technology at large is confirmed by the number of NASCIO members who take the time to volunteer as judges,” said James Collins, CIO of the state Delaware and Awards Committee co-chair.  “All of the nominations exemplify the vital, and often unsung, role IT plays in state government.  The judges have a tough job in narrowing them down.”

To ensure states can access the innovations and best practices of their peers, details about all nominated projects are posted on NASCIO’s website, www.NASCIO.org.

Awards finalists in the 2015 program are as follows:

Cross Boundary Collaboration and Partnerships
State of Colorado: Universal Application
State of Iowa: Iowa Property Tax Reform
State of North Dakota: Health Information Network
State of Ohio: Health & Human Services Transformation

Cybersecurity
State of Colorado: Secure Colorado – Achieving Quick and Sustainable Risk Reduction
State of Idaho: Cyber Security Program
State of Michigan: Michigan Cyber Disruption Response Strategy
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Advanced Cyber Analytics Improves Pennsylvania’s Cybersecurity Intelligence and Response Program

Digital Government to Business (G2B)
State of Kansas: Kansas Business Center
Commonwealth of Massachusetts: Enhancing the State’s Healthcare Landscape through Trusted Information Exchange
State of Missouri: Geosciences Technical Resource Assessment Tool (GeoSTRAT)
Commonwealth of Virginia: Enhancing Customer Service through the Mobile Collectors Application

Digital Government to Citizen (G2C)
State of Arkansas: Mobile Filing System Enables Arkansans to Receive 172% More Unclaimed Property
State of Minnesota: MPARS Permitting and Reporting System
Commonwealth of Virginia: Electronic Death Registration and Birth Certificates on Demand
State of Washington: Customer-Focused Service Enhancements to Online Tax Filing System

Disaster Recovery/Security & Business Continuity Readiness
State of Delaware: Combined Disaster Recovery and Continuity of Operations Program
State of Oregon: Oregon-Montana Disaster Recovery Phases 1 & 2
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: All Eyes – A Security Breach Exercise
Commonwealth of Virginia: Disaster Recovery/Continuity in the Commonwealth of Virginia

Emerging & Innovative Technologies
State of Colorado: PEAKHealth Mobile Application
State of Minnesota: Crowdsourcing Minnesota’s Unsession
State of Oregon: OReGO – Oregon Road Usage Charge
State of Washington: COBOL to Cloud – Transparent, Real-Time Change Detection and Data Exchange from On-Premises Legacy Mainframe System to Software as a Service

Enterprise IT Management Initiatives
State of Michigan: IT Investment Fund – Fiscal Responsibility and Accountability
State of Ohio: IT Optimization – Driving Business Value
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: PA Treasury Transformation and Modernization Project
Commonwealth of Virginia: Strategic Planning with Security as a Priority

Improving State Operations
State of California: Strategic Offender Management System Project
State of Idaho: Internet Unemployment System (iUS)
Commonwealth of Massachusetts: Preventing Healthcare Fraud through Predictive Modeling
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: PennDOT Mobile Highway Construction App

Information Communications Technology Innovations
District of Columbia: Citywide Wireless
State of Minnesota: Workforce One Re-write
State of Utah: Utah Hunting and Fishing
State of Wyoming: Wyoming Unified Network a Leap into a New Era

Open Government Initiatives
State of Michigan: Enterprise Information Management
State of North Dakota: North Dakota eTranscript System
State of Texas: Texas Open Data Portal
Commonwealth of Virginia: VA Roads – Virginia’s Portal for Map-Based Transportation Information

Special CIO Recognition Award
State of California: Project Academy Series
State of North Carolina: North Carolina Innovation Center
State of Oklahoma: IT Unification – Phase I
State of Washington: Prioritization of Information Technology Budget Requests