Page 46 - GCN, Oct/Nov 2016

ICE’s Information Sharing and Infrastructure Manage- ment Unit, which develops IT systems and identifies new technology. “I’m always going to have my iPhone and a portable scanner to put
in my pocket, but carrying around a laptop increases the complexity.”
The app cost $180,000
to develop, while the cost
of providing laptops and fingerprint scanners to every officer would have been
in the millions of dollars, Werner said. But the time saved is the real benefit. Now officers don’t have to bring a suspect to a booking location to take fingerprints, and with biometric data collected in the field, staffers back at the office can prepare the paper- work to speed processing.
“It promotes our public safety and national security” while ensuring officers don’t take the wrong people into custody, Werner said.
— Stephanie Kanowitz
A mobile digital assistant for Arkansans
Gov2Go merges services from more than 100 state and local government agencies onto one mobile- accessible platform
When Information Network of Arkansas (INA) officials set out to digitize citizen services, they immediately thought of Amazon’s func- tionality and popularity.
“We realized citizens expect to experience govern- ment services in a way that is similar to how they experi- ence services in the private sector, like shopping on Ama-
zon,” INA General Manager Bob Sanders said.
What he and his colleagues came up with is a personal government assistant called Gov2Go that merges the services from more than 100 state and local government agencies onto one platform with a “conversational voice,” Sanders said. “Citizens can interact with services without having to know which agen- cies they’re touching.”
The platform, powered by data in the cloud, can save Arkansans time and money with regular renewal remind- ers sent directly to their Apple Watch, iPhone or An- droid device. A calendar also lets Arkansans see upcoming deadlines.
In addition to helping residents avoid late fees, the reminders include instruc- tions for processes such as assessing a vehicle, paying property taxes and renewing car tags — services that the majority of Arkansans used to do in person, with an es- timated 30 percent accruing late fees because they missed one of the necessary steps.
Although it isn’t as popular as Amazon yet, in Gov2Go’s first year, more than 144,000 people — 12 percent of the population — have created accounts.
In future releases, Gov2Go will provide access to more government services, includ- ing election registration, health and education servic- es, and hunting and fishing licenses, among others.
— Suzette Lohmeyer
Flight data at pilots’ fingertips
The Aero app
provides the
more than
25,000 pilots
who use it with cloud-based
access to the latest maps and route plans
The Aero electronic flight bag app is the biggest change in aviation since GPS, said Bruce Farnham, program of- ficer at the National Geo- spatial-Intelligence Agency’s Aeronautical Office.
NGA developed the cloud- based app to support military and first-responder avia- tors. It enables those pilots to download aeronautical information anywhere in the world from Amazon Web Services’ cloud.
The app’s constant data updates provide the more than 25,000 pilots who use
it with the latest maps and route plans. Having fast ac- cess to accurate information helps ensure the safety of the military personnel who use Aero.
“Recently, a KC-135 pilot lost all electrical power in the cockpit while flying
a refueling mission over the Middle East,” Farnham said. “Having the Aero
app allowed the crew to safely navigate out of the area. They navigated using the app for 45 minutes till they were able to restore power.”
Aero — available for
iOS, Android and Windows devices — replaces binders filled with charts and graphs, which pilots had to pre-
pare before takeoff and flip
Dig IT Award Judges
GCN is grateful to this year’s judges, who devoted their deep expertise
and significant personal time to picking this year’s winners. Please note that all judges participate in an individual capacity; their selections in no way represent an official agency or government position.
David Bray
CIO
Federal Communications Commission
Andrea Ippolito
Presidential Innovation Fellow and VA Innovators Network Lead Department of Veterans Affairs
Kerry Long
Program Manager
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity
Ron Ross
Fellow
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Zachary Townsend
Chief Data Officer
State of California
46 GCN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016 • GCN.COM