NASCIO Endorses DOTGOV Act of 2019

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WASHINGTON, D.C., Monday, November 2, 2019 —The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) today endorsed S. 2749, the DOTGOV Act of 2019. Introduced by U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and James Lankford (R-OK), the legislation takes serious steps to expand the adoption of the .gov domain in order to improve the cybersecurity of local  government websites. 

Specifically, the bipartisan bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to develop an outreach strategy to inform and support the migration to the .gov domain of local governments, as well as provide technical information on how to migrate online services to .gov. Additionally, the DOTGOV Act of 2019 authorizes the use of Homeland Security Grant funds as an allowable expense for the adoption of the .gov domain and further stipulates that the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency may waive any fees associated with migration to .gov.

NASCIO President and North Carolina Secretary and State CIO Eric Boyette lauded the introduction of S. 2749 saying, “as local governments continue to be targets of a constant barrage of sophisticated cybersecurity and spoofing attacks, the .gov domain sends a message to the user that the domain is legitimate and secure. NASCIO has long advocated for the adoption of .gov domains and we greatly appreciate this legislative effort to provide assistance to vulnerable and under-resourced local governments.” 

The DOTGOV Act of 2019 was introduced in the United States Senate on October 30 and referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. More information on S. 2749 can be found HERE.

NASCIO Members and Conference Attendees Give Back to Nashville, Host City of the 2019 Annual Conference

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LEXINGTON, Ky., October 29, 2019 — The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) provided a $9,374 donation to the Apprenti TN education and apprenticeship program. The program, a part of the Nashville Technology Council, has a mission of bridging the gap for segments of the population who have the aptitude to learn a technical skill but have not had the opportunity. Donations were collected during the NASCIO Annual Conference in Nashville through the Give Back program to thank the host community. NASCIO state, corporate and nonprofit members donated through individual contributions and NASCIO provided a matching donation.

Apprenti Tennessee, the first technology-focused apprenticeship program in Tennessee, is unlike internships or traditional job training options. Apprenti Tennessee combines paid on-the-job training and education with placement in highly skilled, salary-competitive occupations. The program works with the tech industry to identify mid-tier jobs ready to be filled by highly competent people regardless of educational background. Apprenti Tennessee actively recruits women, minorities, and veterans to aid in diversifying the tech industry, but everyone is eligible and encouraged to apply.

“The NTC Foundation is grateful for our Apprenti TN program to be the NASCIO 2019 Give Back recipient,” said Sandi Hoff, NTC Foundation Executive Director. “These donations will allow Apprenti TN to further identify the underemployed in our region who have the aptitude to learn a tech skill and provide them the opportunity to learn those skills and move into higher paying tech jobs.

To learn more about Apprenti Tennessee, visit https://technologycouncil.com/apprentitn/

NASCIO Honors Three Public Servants with State Technology Innovator Award

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The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) presented the State Technology Innovator Award to three deserving public servants during the 2019 NASCIO Annual Conference in Nashville. The NASCIO State Technology Innovator Award honors outstanding state government employees who have made contributions to advance state technology policy through the promotion of best practices, adoption of new technologies and advancements in service delivery. Nominations were gathered from NASCIO members as well as non-members and selected by the NASCIO Executive Committee.

The following are the recipients of the 2019 NASCIO State Technology Innovator Award:

Nikhil Deshpande
Chief Digital Officer, State of Georgia
As Chief Digital Officer of Digital Services Georgia at the Georgia Technology Authority, Nikhil Deshpande leads the team responsible for managing Georgia.gov, the official online portal to Georgia state government, and Georgia GovHub, the state’s official publishing platform for delivering state-of-the-art, secure, accessible and compliant websites. Nikhil has spearheaded many initiatives including a state website rebranding initiative, ensuring the state’s websites meet the needs of constituents with disabilities and is responsible for Georgia being the first state to use responsive design technology on both its web portal and its enterprise publishing platform.

Tony Powell
Chief Information Officer, Department of Health, State of Florida
As the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) CIO, Tony Powell directs IT operations and modernization efforts across the department’s 400+ locations. Alongside peers from Florida and the greater U.S., Powell sought new ways to deliver consistent access to applications, provide dependable support and services, and ensure continuity of operations no matter the circumstances. Under Powell’s leadership, FDOH has adopted a multi-cloud and hybrid cloud approach for production workloads, non-production workloads and disaster recovery with encryption at rest and transport. The result is the ability to be nimble, adjust during disasters, operate when issues arise during day-to-day operations and provide maximum adaptability to meet all circumstances.

Tere Shade
Business Solutions Manager, State of Texas
Tere Shade is the Business Solutions Manager for the Department of Information Resources (DIR) Shared Technology Services (STS) Program in the State of Texas and oversaw the transformation of the STS program. Under her leadership, STS was able to establish a new service delivery system to support a shift from data center-driven environments to a broad host of managed IT service offerings available to eligible state agencies, city and county governments, higher education institutions and public school districts in the state of Texas. Additionally, she successfully led the September 2018 launch of the Outreach and Growth team, promoting the goal of integrating marketing automation, customer relationship management and IT service management systems. Her efforts have resulted in more than doubling the number of STS customers that now include approximately 150 cities, counties and public school districts in Texas.

NASCIO Announces Recipients for 2019 NASCIO State IT Recognition Awards

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The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) today announced recipients for the State IT Recognition Awards. Projects and initiatives from NASCIO member states and territories were eligible for nomination. NASCIO members served as volunteer judges to review the over 130 submissions, narrowing the nominees down to finalists in each category.

NASCIO Awards Committee co-chairs, Denis Goulet, Commissioner for the State of New Hampshire, and Nelson Moe, Chief Information Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, praised the recipients and all states who submitted a project: “the recipients and submissions for this year’s awards are prime examples of how state IT can transform and improve the lives of the citizens we serve. We are proud to recognize them with this high honor.”

The award recipients showcase the use of information technology to address critical business problems, more easily connect citizens to their government, improve business processes and create new opportunities that improve the lives of citizens.

Award recipients for the 2019 State IT Recognition Awards are:

Business Process Innovations
State of Michigan: JobNet: Road to the Future

Cross-Boundary Collaboration & Partnerships
State of North Carolina: Improving Emergency Response Precision with the State Emergency Response Application

Cybersecurity
State of Ohio: Digital Identity: Providing a Secure Customer Experience

Data Management, Analytics & Visualization
State of Illinois: Winning Against Tax Fraud with Data Analytics

Digital Government: Government to Business
State of Minnesota: Preparing for Emergencies: Medical PreCheck & Locator App

Digital Government: Government to Citizen
State of North Carolina: Women, Infants and Children Benefits in the Mobile Application Age

Emerging & Innovative Technologies
State of Washington: Using UAS Technology in Collision and Crime Scene Reconstruction

Enterprise IT Management Initiatives
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania IT and HR Shared Services Transformation

Information Communications Technology (ICT) Innovations
State of California: Identification and Removal of Hazardous Materials During Wildfire Response

State CIO Office Special Recognition
State of Washington: Sexual Assault Kit Tracking System

To review all 2019 submissions and previous submissions from the past 31 years, visit the awards library: www.nascio.org/Awards/SIT

NASCIO Announces New CLC Leadership and Corporate Longevity Award Recipients

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Today, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) announced new leadership elected by its corporate members to serve as Chair and Co-Chair of the NASCIO Corporate Leadership Council (CLC). The CLC is comprised of dedicated NASCIO corporate members committed to utilizing private sector intellectual and financial resources to serve NASCIO and its members. CLC members promote information sharing among public and private-sector members, providing expertise to NASCIO issue focus areas and developing publications and projects.

The NASCIO corporate members have elected a new CLC Chair and Vice Chair for the 2019-2020 program year: Rick Webb (Accenture) will take the role as CLC Chair and Ron Baldwin (Deloitte) will be the CLC Vice Chair. The CLC Chair and Vice Chair hold an advisory seat on NASCIO's Executive Committee.

Additionally, NASCIO honored corporate members celebrating a longevity milestone this year. Corporations holding memberships in NASCIO for five years (and at 5-year intervals thereafter) are recognized during the annual conference.

NASCIO’s Corporate Longevity Award recipients for 2019 are:

25 years – Information Builders and Oracle
20 years – Deloitte
15 years – CDW-G and e.Republic
10 years – IDEMIA and Salesforce
5 years – Apptio, Compuware Corporation, EY, Forescout Technologies Inc., Integris Applied, KSM Consulting, Pure Storage, Security Mentor Inc., SHI International Corporation, Tanium and Veritas Technologies LLC

As State CIO Responsibilities Expand, Renewed Dedication to Customer Service Abounds

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With heightened attention around improving the government experience, state technology leaders are instituting new measures to evaluate the effectiveness of agency programs, policy and operations. The 2019 State CIO Survey, The Responsive State CIO: Connecting to the Customer, takes a deep dive into how state IT leaders are targeting their responses to customer needs, in addition to managing the evolving IT responsibilities of state leaders. The survey was released by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), Grant Thornton LLP and CompTIA. It includes responses from 49 state and territory CIOs on a range of issues, including two new topics for this year: customer relationship management and state and local collaboration.

“As NASCIO looks back and celebrates our 50th year, we are also looking forward to what the next 50 years will bring to state technology,” NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson commented. “The Responsive State CIO takes a look at the business models, processes, skills and roles the future state CIO will need.”

“In this 10th release of our State CIO Survey, we have highlighted the enhanced focus state CIOs are placing on being proactive in anticipating and responding to customer needs,” said Graeme Finley, principal with Grant Thornton’s Public Sector practice. “From establishing dedicated units to managing customer relationships to increasing the transparency in how they charge for services, CIOs are now more than ever treating strong customer relationships as vital to their success.”

“Much like the role of the CIO has evolved to a more customer service-focused approach, industry is also adapting to the changing responsibilities and focus of their CIO customers to better understand, anticipate and respond to their needs,” added Jordan Kroll, Director of Public Sector at CompTIA. “This survey provides vendor partners with a roadmap to better understand and respond to trends in the state IT marketplace and key barriers CIOs face in meeting the needs of their constituents and government agencies."

The 2019 State CIO Survey highlights CIO business models, IT cost management, workforce, cybersecurity, performance management, acquisition, cloud services, digital government, data management and analytics and emerging technologies. The complete report, The Responsive State CIO: Connecting to the Customer, is available on the NASCIO website (www.NASCIO.org).

NASCIO, CDG and IBM Release Report on Current AI Trends Among State IT Executives

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The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), along with the Center for Digital Government and IBM, today released a study on current artificial intelligence (AI) trends among state information technology executives. The study is an overview of survey responses from 45 states including state CIOs and their deputies, chief technology officers and selected agency heads. It also includes insights from in-depth interviews with multiple state CIOs.

New NASCIO President and North Carolina Secretary and State CIO Eric Boyette said, “Like most states, we continue to face a shortage, but have found that having AI resources such as chatbots allows employees to work more efficiently. AI has also allowed us to quickly analyze a large volume of security threats so that we can focus on the ones that need immediate attention. While AI is new for most states, I think it’s the direction that are all moving in.”

“This study is another validation of the productivity and personalization improvements AI will bring to government processes, professions and platforms. It will truly transform how government works and delivers services to citizens in a secure integrated way,” said Brenda Harvey, General Manager, Public Market, IBM.

The publication highlights challenges such legacy IT infrastructure, cultural concerns, lack of necessary staff skills for AI and organizational data silos and also includes recommendations or best practices including:

• Consider creating a framework for AI adoption
• Create multidisciplinary teams to address change management
• Assess data
• Modernize legacy infrastructures with targeted technology investments
• Choose AI projects where success can be clearly measured

The publication is available on the NASCIO website: www.NASCIO.org/ResourceCenter

NASCIO Honors Two Exemplary State CISOs

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The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has awarded the Thomas M. Jarrett Cybersecurity Scholarship to two exceptional state chief information security officers (CISOs). This is the seventh year for the scholarship program, which was created to pay homage to Thomas M. Jarrett, past president of NASCIO (2004 – 2005), for his passion for cybersecurity. The scholarship grants current CISOs the opportunity to attend the NASCIO Annual Conference and contribute to the national dialogue on cybersecurity and related issues.

The 2019 Thomas M. Jarrett Cybersecurity Scholarship recipients are:

Andy Hanks
Chief Information Security Officer, State of Montana
Nominated by Tim Bottenfield, CIO, State of Montana

As the CISO for the State of Montana, Andy oversees the state’s information security program and is responsible for protecting and preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability of citizen’s data and the state’s information assets. As state CISO, Andy has worked to obtain funding for the Montana Cybersecurity Enhancement Project; launched programs to raise students’ security awareness and interests; established a state cybersecurity apprenticeship program; created workforce development initiatives; formed the Montana Girls Cybersecurity Workgroup; formed the multi-agency Election Security Workgroup; enhanced the state’s security controls; and implemented a new security awareness training for all state employees.

Maria Thompson
Chief Risk Officer, State of North Carolina
Nominated by J. Eric Boyette, CIO, State of North Carolina

As the Chief Risk Officer for the State of North Carolina, Maria manages an enterprise team of security and privacy professionals for the State of North Carolina. During her tenure, Maria has developed statewide cybersecurity policies and procedures including data classification, BYOD, cloud computing and continuous monitoring strategy; developed an enterprise security IT optimization plan; developed the state’s Security Assessment and Compliance Program; established the state’s first Cyber Work Group; established and managed the state’s first Disabled Veterans Cyber Workforce Apprenticeship program; developed and facilitated North Carolina’s adoption of the NIST Risk Management Framework; and has promoted STEM careers, particularly in cybersecurity, to girls and women, across the state through educational programs and speaking engagements.

For more information about the Jarrett Award, including previous winners, please visit: www.nascio.org/Awards

NASCIO Announces New Association Leadership

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Today, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) announced the association’s executive leadership for the new program year. The president for the 2019-2020 program year is J. Eric Boyette, Chief Information Officer for the State of North Carolina, who succeeds James Collins, Chief Information Officer for the State of Delaware. Stephanie Dedmon, CIO for the State of Tennessee, and Greg Zickau, CIO for the State of Idaho, will also be joining NASCIO’s Executive Committee as new directors.

NASCIO’s 2019-20 Executive Committee leaders are:

Executive Committee Officers:

President
J. Eric Boyette, Chief Information Officer, State of North Carolina

Vice-President
Denis Goulet, Commissioner, State of New Hampshire

Secretary/Treasurer
Michael Leahy, Secretary of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Past President
James Collins, Chief Information Officer, State of Delaware

Executive Committee Directors:
Stephanie Dedmon, CIO, State of Tennessee
Yessica Jones, CTO, State of Arkansas
John MacMillan, CIO, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Dewand Neely, CIO, State of Indiana
Mark Raymond, CIO, State of Connecticut
Ed Toner, CIO, State of Nebraska
Greg Zickau, CIO, State of Idaho

NASCIO Observes Electronic Records Day

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Today, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) is observing Electronic Records Day, sponsored by the Council of State Archivists (CoSA). Electronic Records Day is celebrated every year on October 10 as an opportunity to share what states and organizations are doing to manage digital resources and preserve electronic records.

In recognition of E-Records Day, CoSA has promoted electronic records awareness leading up to October 10 to raise community awareness of digital records, and of the need to manage and preserve them. CoSA reminds us that electronic records need regular attention and care in order to remain accessible. Join NASCIO and CoSA in promoting the importance of digital records and their preservation.

See CoSA’s Electronic Records Day page for more information and tips on managing e-records.