IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Green-based ConnectKentucky’s scope and mission became national last year as its strategy to boost broadband adoption beckoned attention from the nation’s capital.

Now as a national nonprofit umbrella organization called Connected Nation, its Bowling Green headquarters have been retained as it’s expanded with initiatives in Tennessee, Ohio and West Virginia with subsidiary programs that resemble ConnectKentucky.

The General Services Administration (GSA) today formally launched USA Services, a Bush Administration E-Government initiative that pledges to provide citizens with responses to all their Web, e-mail and telephone inquiries within two business days or less.

Hawaii Business Express eliminates the need for new business owners to use paper forms to register separately with federal and state agencies, which reduces the registration time required to create a new business from hours or days to just minutes. Yesterday, Governor Linda Lingle introduced Hawaii Business Express and hailed the online service as yet another convenience for the state's growing business community.

When we step back from high emotions—in either direction—after the U.S. election last week, we see millions of extraordinary people doing yeoman’s work to make our lives, cities, and communities better and more resilient. Hundreds of ways they are doing so were on vivid display at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress 2024 last week in Barcelona, Spain which I had the privilege of exploring. People from across the globe who share a fervent desire to make our cities run more efficiently, serve more residents more effectively and be more resilient – that is, to make them “smarter” — gathered and displayed their solutions.

It's a living reminder that clever, determined, creative people will always use their imagination, resources, networks and elbow grease to find a way to solve every day challenges both large and small. Most of the people I talked to at the Expo – from the Netherlands, to Cyprus and Singapore, from Europe to the Middle East, and fellow Americans – are quick to say their work continues no matter who sits in the White House.

Unter dem Motto "Smarter Cities" trafen sich vor kurzem über 500 US-Regierungsangehörige, Unternehmer und Wissenschaftler, um die US-Verwaltung effizienter zu machen. Die Konferenz wurde nicht zufällig von IBM gesponsert, denn Techologie soll einen wichtigen Faktor auf diesem Weg darstellen. Als Folge der Krise gilt es nicht nur in der freien Wirtschaft sondern vor allem auch bei Verwaltung zu sparen. Für Hightech-Unternehmen dürfte es hier viel Geld zu verdienen geben, denn die Politikfelder und damit auch die Probleme sind vielfältig, so die New York Times. So sollen die Verwaltungen von Verkehr, Energie, Gesundheit, Ausbildung und Sozialhilfe gestrafft werden.

Honolulu, San Antonio, Boston, and Raleigh-Durham have been investing in residents and the planet.

Last summer, the Honolulu City Council approved the city's first-ever Climate Action Plan, a detailed strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next five years and reach carbon neutrality by 2045. The plan had been years in the making and involved community meetings, working groups with stakeholders including local utility companies and other partners, and resident engagement.

A well-structured, data-driven and measurable digital transformation plan is in itself a broad business strategy. The exceptional business outcomes of a well-designed digital transformation plan, such as increased revenue growth, improved innovation quotient, opened new frontiers and optimized operational costs, drive organizations toward implementation. By some projections, the global spending on digital transformation will reach $2.4 trillion by 2024.

To implement a digital transformation plan effectively, businesses must start with a road map guided by business outcomes, then pair strategic initiatives with technology-related initiatives. The exciting yet risky task of digital transformation can be done effectively by leveraging the following best practices:

States nationwide are adopting model legislation that requires them to make published legal data verifiable, which will effectively force them to publish legal data as PDFs -- bringing an era of expanding legal data availability to an end. So U.S. Open Data stepped in.

An open data armageddon is upon us for state legal data, in the form of the Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (UELMA, pronounced “you-EL-mah”). The model legislation is being adopted by states throughout the nation, requiring them to make published legal data verifiable, so that people know that it is official, authoritative, and unchanged. On its current course, the law will effectively force states to publish legal data as PDFs, bringing to an end an era of expanding the availability of legal data.

The United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has approved a grant of US$2.5 million to support the Nusantara Capital Authority in developing detailed designs and procurement documentation for its priority smart city infrastructure in Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara.

The USTDA announced that the funding is intended to improve the development of Nusantara’s smart city initiatives. They also plan to host a reverse trade mission next month, bringing a delegation of senior officials and decision-makers from Nusantara to the US.