Featured
Lawmakers Make Last-Minute Calls to Save Affordable Connectivity Program
Lawmakers are making a last-minute plea to save the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) as it begins to wind down this week, leaving millions of Americans at risk of losing their subsidized internet service.
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UW-Madison Rolls out Microsoft Copilot for School Community
University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that students, faculty, and staff will now have access to Microsoft Copilot, the tech company’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
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Idaho Funds Vape Detection Pilot for Schools
The Idaho Department of Education announced it will help states and charters install vape detectors in high school bathrooms and locker rooms through the Vape Detector Pilot grant.
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White House Enlists Intel Agencies in Critical Infrastructure Protection
President Biden today signed a new national security memorandum (NSM) that aims to better protect U.S. critical infrastructure sectors by enlisting U.S. intelligence agencies to ramp up their sharing of threat data across multiple levels of government and with private-sector critical infrastructure providers.
Recent News
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NASCIO Execs: Cloud is No Longer a Priority, but an Expectation
As more states are taking advantage of StateRAMP, officials from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) say that state CIOs no longer view cloud as a priority, but as an expectation.
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DHS Launches New AI Safety and Security Board
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced the establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board, which will consider ways to promote the safe and secure use of AI technology in U.S. critical infrastructure.
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Tennessee College Opens Tech Studio to Train Teachers
Austin Peay State University in Tennessee has opened the Furniture Connection EdTech Studio, a comprehensive learning hub that allows pre-service teachers to gain hands-on experience using virtual reality (VR) headsets, 3D printers, LEGO Education sets, robotics, coding devices, and other cutting-edge tools.
Join state CIOs and industry experts for discussions on the pressing issues facing state and local government IT teams during the next installment of MeriTalk’s State Tech Vision series.
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New York Launches Empire AI Consortium
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced an agreement with the state legislature to establish Empire AI – a consortium that the governor’s office said will secure New York’s place at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) research. The agreement comes as part of the state’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
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Colorado OIT Names New Chief Operations Officer
The Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) has tapped Sridevi (Sri) Ramaswamy as its new chief operations officer.
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N.C. Touts 911 Modernization Success
The North Carolina 911 Board has completed a lengthy modernization process intended to improve emergency services statewide.
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PRAC: Legacy IT Systems Overarching Problem in Pandemic UI Fraud
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) published a new report stating that legacy IT systems at the Department of Labor (DoL) and state and local governments are an overarching issue within the DoL’s unemployment insurance (UI) program.
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D.C. Police Use Real-Time Crime Center to Combat Threats
The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has launched two new tech-enabled initiatives – the Real-Time Crime Center and CameraConnect DC – which are both intended to fight crime and help the MPD apprehend criminals.
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North Dakota Works to Improve Financial Literacy
In honor of April being Financial Literacy Month, North Dakota has launched a new digital resource to help residents improve their financial literacy.
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California IT: Legacy of Failure and a Call for Reform
The book, Technology vs. Government: The Irresistible Force Meets the Immovable Object, was written and edited by Lloyd Levine, and co-published with contributions from eight other chapter authors including myself. Levine is a former member of the California State Legislature, and Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California. Levine’s tome is being called both a solid guidepost and a stark warning for government policy and administrative leaders at all levels of the public sector – especially for those leaders and their private sector IT vendor partners who have faced the wrath of public reprobation for their too-frequent shortcomings.
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Delaware Rolls out Improved State Housing Authority Website
The Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) announced the launch of an improved and more user-friendly website. State leaders said the new website was designed with the public and partners in mind, providing them easy access to services, resources, and information.
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CoSN, STEDA Release Free Procurement Tools
The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) have released the K-12 Community Vendor Assessment Tool Lite-V4.1 (K-12CVAT), a questionnaire framework specifically designed for K-12 schools, districts, and education service districts to measure vendor risk.
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Tech Hubs Program Requests $2 Billion in Phase 2 Proposals
The Department of Commerce’s (DoC) Economic Development Administration (EDA) made public today the details of the 31 technology hubs’ proposals for the second phase of the new Tech Hubs program – revealing a collective request of $2 billion in funding for a total of 182 projects.
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Task Force Urges BU ‘Critically Embrace’ AI Tech
Boston University (BU) recently released its AI Task Force Report, which includes a push for the university to “critically embrace” artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across campus.
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Montana Using Tech to Offer Personalized Professional Development Plans for Teachers
The Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI) is partnering with ImpactED, a global technology firm, to develop personalized professional development plans for K-8 teachers.
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Kansas Investing $8M in Digital Opportunities
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly announced that the state’s Digital Equity (DE) Plan has been approved by the Federal government, clearing the way for the state to receive $8.2 million in Federal funding to improve high-speed internet connectivity and increase digital opportunities across the state.
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Maryland Launches Website for Bridge Collapse Response
Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month, the state of Maryland began what is sure to be a lengthy recovery process. To help aid in that process, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has launched a new website that will serve as a central hub for Marylanders in search of Federal, state, and local resources and programs related to the bridge collapse.