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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 California Department of Pesticide Regulation has submitted a Budget Change Proposal seeking funding to hire a vendor and design a new electronic pesticide tracking solution.
After the shift to remote work last spring due to the COVID pandemic, California state agencies are adapting — and will continue to do so, thanks to technology, said state Deputy Chief Information Officer Russ Nichols.
Steve Gordon, the Department of Motor Vehicles’ director, provided an update on ongoing technology work around a new platform, mobile drivers' licenses or identity cards, and Real ID work, as well as areas of potential future procurement.
California authorized paying OptumServe up to $221 million. But the company has helped with only 1 percent of the state’s vaccinations since January, according to a report in CalMatters.
“I’m a people person, so I still look for the opportunity to be able to meet with industry leaders in person. I am looking forward to that. I’m sure the vendor community is looking forward to that,” said Liana Bailey-Crimmins, state CTO and chief of the Office of Technology Services.
The senior project manager is “an expert-level adviser” and a critical part of the Portfolio Management team, directing the most critical and complex projects and demonstrating “the highest level of expertise available in state service, working to support the systems and services of the IT project management domain.”
In a recent Budget Change Proposal, the California Department of Consumer Affairs is seeking the funding and staff to enable several of its entities to update aspects of their technology.
The positions are in the Office of Digital Innovation (ODI), a component of the state Government Operations Agency. ODI was designed to bring “a human-centered, agile and product-focused mindset to technology design, delivery and procurement.”
CalMatters.org found that more than 251,000 Californians signed up on MyTurn to volunteer at vaccine clinics. But only 379 people have been able to book shifts through the state’s problem-plagued website.
The state Assembly Appropriations Committee placed numerous bills in suspense last week, halting their progress through the Legislature – but let a handful of technology legislation continue onward.
“Technology is a part of everything that we do personally and in our day jobs. The role of the CIO has changed from a technologist to really understanding and collaborating (with) our program areas,” said Cheryl Larson, chief information officer for California Correctional Health Care Services.
“Given the size of the current contractor pool, the county desires the services of one firm to perform the required oversight and management of IT contractors, along with other services as identified in this RFP,” the solicitation states.
“I’m beyond excited to have joined the Microsoft SLG team as an Azure Solutions specialist,” Sara Matthews told Techwire. “I am eager to help my fellow citizens of California by guiding our state towards a digital transformation to support this amazing state.”
The division’s eForms Online application uses a platform provided by SimpliGov that allows businesses to submit their PDF document filings online to the secretary of state’s office. Before the application was rolled out, businesses had to submit the documents in person or via mail.
In the recent webinar “Enterprise-Grade Performance for a Work-From-Anywhere World,” former state Chief Information Officer Carlos Ramos discussed the challenges and opportunities government faces at work as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes.
The tools purchased by the department between Jan. 1 and March 31 include laptops, licenses and other hardware, with the five largest such purchases totaling $1,395,269.
“I’m excited to take on the challenge of showing state and local government agencies how to navigate a hybrid office environment, all while providing an easy-to-use digital desktop experience to their employees,” Jim Jennings told Techwire.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has submitted a budget change proposal for financial backing to improve its online architecture and academic offerings for inmates.
“I feel like cloud, AI, 5G and SD-WAN are kind of the big things that all these different IT resources and groups are talking about, and Cradlepoint really has sunk their teeth into the 5G and SD-WAN part of things,” Juan La O told Techwire.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2021-2022 Fiscal Year state budget has grown to $267.8 billion in its May revision and could fund a variety of IT- and innovation-related projects.
The California Department of Technology’s five purchases of IT services last month totaled more than $1 million and included site reliability engineering and customer support.
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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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