State CIOs Prioritize Cybersecurity, Digital Government, Broadband for 2021

LEXINGTON, Ky.,Wednesday, December 9, 2020—today, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released the State CIO Top 10 for 2021. The Top 10 represents state technology leaders’ top policy and technology priorities for the coming year, as voted on by state CIOs, and has been published every year since 2007. Cybersecurity remains the top priority for the eighth year running and workforce rejoins the top ten after being absent since 2016.

“State CIO priorities for 2021 clearly reflect the events of the past year,” said Denis Goulet, NASCIO President and CIO and Commissioner for the State of New Hampshire. “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of cybersecurity, digital government services and broadband access, among other topics.”

Other items of note from the 2021 Top 10 are:

• In addition to being the number one priority for the past several years, cybersecurity has always been on the list since the Top 10 has been published
• Digital government is number two this year, moving up from number four in 2019
• Broadband is the highest its ever been on the Top 10 coming in at number four
• Since 2011 cloud services has been on the Top 10 and comes in at number three this year
• Customer relationship management remains on the list this year

NASCIO utilizes the annual voting of priorities to develop strategic areas of focus for the coming year, formulate new committees and working groups and plan NASCIO conference sessions and publications.

The Top 10 can be found on NASCIO’s website, www.NASCIO.org.