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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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The populous public entity is calling for proposals from companies that can provide it a comprehensive, forward-thinking broadband plan.
Rick Klau, California’s chief technology innovation officer, hit the ground running when he joined state government earlier this year. He’s been focused primarily on how the state can best use technology in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The entity selected has a long history of working with state and local government to improve Internet access. Here, it will focus on “developing the fiber network, creating rural exchange points, and collaborating with the California Public Utilities Commission and Caltrans” on, generally, middle-mile broadband.
Officials with California’s 116-campus community college system say they are seeing a spike in cyberattacks since the pandemic, which they suspect is because the scammers are targeting federal COVID-19 relief grants along with traditional financial aid.
The agencies seeking applicants include the California Department of Technology, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
“Because of our success to date, as well as being the first department in the state to pilot a permanent hybrid telework program, FI$Cal was chosen by the Government Operations Agency’s Center for Government Excellence and Transformation pilot program,” writes FI$Cal Deputy Director Jennifer Maguire.
“I try to share with my staff that evidence of we are doing a great job is when we are invisible, and our coworkers get their job done seamlessly,” says Jorge Henneke, chief information officer for the California Conservation Corps.
Techwire will observe the Labor Day holiday on Monday and will not be publishing a newsletter. The daily update will resume Tuesday.
Nadean Shavor, who began her career with the state as a programmer in 1996 while in college, has been named CIO for the State Franchise Tax Board.
The Legislature’s timeframe to pass bills this session is getting very short but several significant pieces of proposed technology and innovation legislation are still alive. Others, though, are no longer active.
The CISO will report to the chief information officer and will have full responsibility for all the department’s sensitive data/systems – automated and manual, physical and logical, on-premises and cloud-deployed.
“After 2.5 years working with Gartner’s High Tech vendors, I am thrilled to be joining our California Public Sector team to help equip our state and local government leaders to make the right decisions and stay ahead of change,” Tiffany Mina told Techwire.
“The state technology community holds Pam in high regard,” state Chief Information Officer Amy Tong told Techwire via email. “Throughout her career, she has taken on many difficult roles to advance California’s technology efforts. We welcome her appointment and look forward to her success.”
The state department is updating existing processes and is working with a longtime IT contractor to do more in the digital realm.
Gurinder Bains has a background in both the public and private sectors. He most recently served in state government as the chief information officer for the California Student Aid Commission.
Michael Hogan joins the company with more than 25 years’ experience in telecom and technology sales management, and Tina Park has a new role within the company after advising Spectrum Enterprise clients for more than 17 years.
The California Department of Technology has spent more than $20 million on IT goods so far this month and made the majority of its top five most expensive purchases with the same vendor.
Data Con LA 2021, this year’s virtual version of an annual event focused on data and the technologies that gather, use and share it, has announced its roster of speakers and other details for next month’s conference.
Responsibilities of the role include oversight of IT contracting, procurement and vendor management. The incumbent also manages IT sourcing and procurements and project life cycle, including scope and requirements definition, timeline development, resource allocation, and cost accounting.
The bill would have set a May 31 deadline for the Employment Development Department to implement recommendations aimed at reducing delays in paying benefits, prioritizing modernization of its technology, assessing its call center operations and improving its tracking of claimants’ problems.
The Judicial Council of California has issued a Request for Proposals seeking qualified systems integrators to upgrade an existing system and move it off-prem.
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