At the CalAsian Chamber’s Small Business Summit in Santa Clara on Wednesday, keynote speaker Carlos Ramos, Director and State CIO of the California Department of Technology, announced a Vendor Forum on Dec. 18, at 9 a.m. The special event will focus on large-scale technology procurement. Vendors and agency CIO’s are invited to this forum at the Department of Technology’s Training Center, located at 10860 Gold Center Drive, PG1 First Floor, Rancho Cordova. The purpose of the forum is to give information technology vendors and state agency CIO’s the opportunity to express and share ideas on how best to improve California’s information technology procurement systems. The focus of the agenda are large scale "reportable" projects; those where an IFB or RFP are used as the procurement vehicle.
Ramos also urged small businesses to look into bidding on parts of the California High Speed Rail Authority project, which he said is part of the 2013 IT Capital Plan. He pointed out there was a 30% goal for small business participants, in addition to goals for minority, women-owned and businesses owned by disabled persons.
In his address, Ramos emphasized how much tech is a key driver of California’s economy. He said California firms capture half of the nation’s venture capital funding, and California ranked #1 in the US clean tech leadership index for the fourth straight year. He said over a third of job growth in our state is driven by tech. He pointed out that the average wages in the public sector are good in California because of the tech industry. An average wage of a California tech worker is $123,900, while a California worker in another sector makes $53,600 and an average tech worker in the US makes $93,800. 42,000 tech companies call California home, and one million tech workers live in California.
It is not surprising then that California is tech savvy, with 91% of adults owning mobile devices. Ramos’ said a part of his agency handles 9-1-1 emergency calls. The staff noticed a big shift of calls coming from mobile devices instead of landline phones. This caused his agency to be one of the first in the nation to change how 9-1-1 calls are routed. Previously, 9-1-1 calls used to go to the California Highway Patrol, on the outdated theory that people mostly used to use cellphones in their cars while driving around. The CHP was inundated with 9-1-1 calls, many of which were not in its jurisdiction. Precious seconds were wasted transferring the call to the right jurisdiction’s emergency dispatch center. Now, with smart phone penetration high, people carry their cellphones everywhere in their pockets. So, California changed its 9-1-1 call routing to go to the dispatch center closest to the cell tower closest to the wireless caller. He said busy signals received by callers who called 9-1-1 went from 42% down to 3%, and response times dropped significantly.
After talking about how technology is transformational in our lives, Ramos said his agency was the first to develop a state mobile app store. The state made app templates free for developers and made available state data sets, with the goal of increasing services and public information to Californians.
"If you see a need, fill it," he urged app developers in the audience.
Finally, Ramos also highlighted the creation of the California GIS portal. http://portal.gis.ca.gov/geoportal/catalog/main/home.page He said its goal was to enhance the value of state information through tools to increase use of collaboration and data analysis.
