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Not every chatbot launch goes to plan, a lesson the city of Long Beach learned with the introduction of its own digital assistant, Ask Elby! Officials shared their experiences with the technology at the recent GovAI Coalition Summit in San Jose.
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Industry Insider — California is pleased to welcome Pacific Housing West (PHW) to the Industry Insider family. PHW is a cutting-edge BIPOC-led organization oriented toward affordable housing solutions. Cross-trained in acquisitions, public and private finance, and construction, the firm brings decades of experience and resources to bear to bring projects in on track and on budget. PHW is attacking the inflationary budget issues facing most affordable and workforce housing groups by going to the supply chain and creating midrise and high-rise buildings using the latest in modular wood, steel and CLT construction. For more information, visit Pacific Housing West or contact Executive Director Jabari Herbert.
After the police department suffered a ransomware attack, it took the city five weeks to recover. Now it’s looking at a hefty bill for that recovery, as well as preventative measures against future incidents.
Technology veteran Ken Ketsdever has held a series of leadership positions in state government, including chief information officer and chief information security officer.
Those with active recruitments include the California Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Franchise Tax Board and the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
The California Department of Technology worked with an executive-level emergency office on updating a key system and made well-received changes to one of its training academies, it said recently.
Since last month’s low-speed crash, which resulted in no injuries, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the company chose to conduct a voluntary recall, and the software update assured such a rare incident “would not recur.”
The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has made 15 purchases of IT services so far this year and spent in the low eight figures on its five top buys, which included 911 services and HR modernization.
City Manager Joe Lopez has said the personal information that may have been accessed was limited mainly to city employees and almost entirely to Police Department employees. He said a small number of people who don’t work for the city may have been affected.
The IT leader at one of the state’s bulwark departments talked to Industry Insider — California about planning for the future of public health, and the budget process.
Attendees at the recent Los Angeles IT Leadership Forum offered insights into what they need and what they want as 2023 unfolds.
Both “fast-paced and challenging” roles require, among other things, hands-on experience in the respective disciplines.
“For me,” said Steve Monaghan, “I get to take off the CIO hat, focusing my full time now on being the director over the nine lines of business that make up our Information and General Services Agency.” The new CIO is Landon Beard, a veteran of county government.
“We’re shifting to a hybrid environment, which will provide opportunities to meet with our customers and collaborate on new technologies,” writes Scott MacDonald, the deputy state chief technology officer.
As part of Industry Insider — California’s ongoing efforts to educate readers on state agencies, their IT plans and initiatives, here’s the latest in our periodic series of interviews with departmental IT leaders.
Chief April Baxter, chief information officer for the California Highway Patrol, will give Industry Insider — California members an overview of the department’s technology and plans. CHP has an annual IT budget of about $100 million.
Aman Bhullar was named the Chief Information Officer of the Year for his accomplishments as Los Angeles County’s assistant registrar-recorder/county clerk and CIO for that department.
The Northern California local government is exploring pushing high-speed Internet out into more than a dozen unserved or underserved areas.
The Chronicle was able to view the published files using a link that was published on the dark web and found that nearly 600 gigabytes of new files were released. The release comes as the city struggles to get a handle on a ransomware attack that has disrupted city systems for nearly two months.
The legal filing, which asks for monetary damages of up to $25,000 per affected employee, argues that the city failed to implement “reasonable, industry-standard security protocols for its information systems” and that as a result, employees’ personal information was released.
In a budget change proposal, the California Department of Veterans Affairs seeks funding to complete its deployment of a standardized electronic health record system across eight homes for veterans and spouses statewide.
The California County Information Services Directors Association and the Municipal Information Systems Association of California have gatherings planned for the spring and fall.
Contributed
Next-generation tools and approaches help agencies mitigate vulnerabilities.
New service offering approved under BeyondTrust’s existing FedRAMP authorization to operate (ATO) broadens government access to identity security
What we can learn from the State of Washington's IT Industry Forum
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