NASCIO Technology Champion Award Honors Brownsville, TX CIO Jorge Cardenas

Lexington, Ky, Wednesday, April 30, 2025 — The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has awarded Jorge Cardenas, Chief Information Officer for the City of Brownsville, Texas, with the association’s 2025 Technology Champion Award. In the award nomination, Cardenas was described as putting a special emphasis on the importance of technology to city operations and citizen experience. He was nominated by Sharon Murphy, Marketing Senior Specialist, NTT DATA.

During Jorge’s three years in Brownsville, he created the city’s first information technology department, updated the city’s network infrastructure to 5G, built out one hundred miles of mid-mile fiber and partnered with an internet service provider to invest in the last mile. As a city that is close to the border of Mexico, there are unique challenges that it must address. The improvements that Jorge has implemented are expected to solve real-time issues like stopping stolen vehicles from crossing the border by using license plate reader technology, detecting unmanned arial vehicles and improving perimeter security at the airport. These updgrades are also expected to attract more businesses to the city, creating job opportunities and fostering economic growth.

NASCIO created the Technology Champion Award in 2003 to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the field of information technology in the public sector. Recipients further NASCIO’s vision of a government in which the public is fully served through the efficient and effective use of technology policy.

Learn more about the NASCIO Technology Champion award and prior recipients at www.nascio.org/awards.

Contact
Meredith Ward
Deputy Executive Director
National Association of State Chief Information Officers
[email protected]