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Christine Harada, who replaced Sarah Soto-Taylor as Government Operations undersecretary in August, is leaving the role for a position on the California Public Utilities Commission.
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“For the past 12 years, Planet has provided countless opportunities to stretch my technical, creative and leadership skills,” Jennifer Dodd told Techwire. “I am honored to take on the responsibility of vice president for the West Region. I look forward to continuing to guide organizations who want to take advantage of cloud technologies.”
Don’t miss the Center for Digital Government’s* annual industry briefing, Beyond the Beltway 2022, which will be held virtually March 3-4. This year’s edition will convene top analysts and government leaders to share their insights into the state and local technology markets. This event will help private-sector IT professionals fine-tune their business strategies and validate sales and marketing activities for the coming year. Register here.
The California Franchise Tax Board is working with Pegasystems, among other vendors, on part of its Enterprise Data to Revenue project, a key component of a 30-year modernization effort to capture revenue that’s owed to the state.
Techwire is pleased to welcome IMPEX Technologies to the Techwire family. IMPEX is driven to leverage modern design and technology to help improve cities, people and their lives. IMPEX offers a range of solutions and services, including data center modernization, cloud transformation, Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics, cybersecurity, business automation, managed services, enterprise mobility and application development. “We provide highly specialized, integrated and value-driven technology solutions and services for diverse customers and industries,” the company says. “We then blend our high-performing teams, trusted partnerships, proven best practices and focused execution to build solutions that create incremental business value.” For more information about IMPEX, email Jon Walton.
Two recent budget change proposals submitted by the California Department of Technology document an evolving IT environment.
The California State Lottery is seeking a senior cloud architect, and the California Department of Technology is recruiting for a project director.
Work is proceeding on several fronts to fully plan and sequence projects and ensure supplies are ready, officials said during the monthly meeting of the Middle-Mile Advisory Committee.
“Moving forward, we will continue to improve our world-class customer service, strengthen our robust security, fine-tune our data management strategy, and continue our aggressive journey to the cloud.”
Wendy Pfeiffer, chief information officer for a company with 7,000 employees worldwide, sees many challenges ahead, including the ongoing pandemic, supply chain issues and limited resources. But, she says, she’s hopeful for the future.
Techwire is pleased to welcome Talkdesk to the Techwire family. Talkdesk offers a worldwide contact center in the cloud to customer-focused organizations. Its customer experience solutions, which emphasize automation, help clients optimize mission-critical customer service processes. The company’s innovation speed, vertical expertise and global presence manifest its commitment to helping business deliver a better experience regardless of channel or industry. In August, Talkdesk was again named a leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service. The company’s CX Cloud is an “end-to-end customer experience solution” integrating enterprise scale and consumer simplicity. More than 1,800 companies globally partner with Talkdesk. For more information, visit talkdesk.com.
“Our early strategy was to say ‘YES!’ to everything. Typically, IT departments were known for saying ‘NO’ to every request and we wanted to differentiate ourselves. We never gave an outright ‘no.’ If we were asked to do something unrealistic or something that would not benefit users, we said ‘We’d love to help understand the problem you’re trying to solve.’”
The staffing changes at the two governments, one a Northern California stalwart, the other a statewide system, will likely shape what they do in tech for years to come.
The city’s pick for the C-level post comes from within City Hall and brings with him a dedication to digital inclusion.
Both positions, in California Correctional Health Care Services, call for familiarity with technology and with the mission of the department, which provides and manages dental, medical and mental health services for those incarcerated in California’s 34 state detention facilities.
As part of Techwire’s ongoing efforts to inform readers about state agencies, their IT plans and initiatives, here’s the latest in our periodic series of interviews with departmental IT and cybersecurity leaders.
“We are building the middle-mile network based on data and opportunities to improve connectivity that will result in reliable and more affordable service in all regions of the state, including hard-to-reach rural and tribal communities and lower-income urban areas,” write the state’s broadband leaders.
The California Employment Development Department’s purchases of IT services rose significantly in number in 2020 relative to 2019 and 2021, but the value of its five costliest such buys has risen consistently each year.
The California County Information Services Directors Association (CCISDA), which presents the IT conferences that many vendors attend, is now managed by the Association Resource Center, which also manages the Municipal Information Systems Association of California.
Steve Monaghan, the veteran chief information officer for Nevada County, has published the second in a series of six essays for Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC), a 38-member service organization that advocates for policies on behalf of rural counties.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking an executive to oversee the Data and Technology Division and to advise top executives on IT policy and implementation.
The California Department of Technology disputes many of the findings in a new report from the California State Auditor, the latest in a series of critiques of CDT since 2013. The Auditor offers recommendations for the department as well as the Legislature on how the state should enhance its security practices.
Contributed
Forrester just published The Forrester Wave — Cloud Native Application Protection Solutions, an independent evaluation of 14 vendors in the CNAPP market. Wiz was named the Leader and received the highest score!
Technological innovation in artificial intelligence has shifted. For the better part of a decade, AI operated within tightly bounded constraints: classifying images, generating text, and using these capabilities to surface recommendations. While these systems were powerful, they were fundamentally passive. They needed to receive a prompt in order to return a result. Once the result was achieved, the system stopped.
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