Dallas Once Again Among Digital Cities Winners

This year’s winners of the Digital Cities Survey awards from the Center for Digital Government* stepped up their municipalities’ digital offerings, providing citizens an array of contactless services and other conveniences delivered through modernized applications and new technology. Several cities also took huge strides to strengthen their IT workforces through additional training and benefits to both attract and retain highly qualified employees. Among Texas winners were Dallas, El Paso and Allen.

Here’s the rundown of Dallas initiatives that caught the judges’ attention. Today’s story is the first of three, originally published in Government Technology, a sister publication of Industry Insider — Texas.

Dallas advanced to the No. 5 spot in this year’s Digital Cities survey in part thanks to a new Technology Accountability Report (TAR) put together by the IT department and issued monthly to the City Council.

TAR provides updates and performance metrics across key areas of IT delivery and management, tracking timelines, budgets and successes of IT projects and programs. It also provides status updates for the city’s cybersecurity programs, including results of phishing campaigns, malware remediation, data backups and other targeted security programs.

Dallas Secure, a free mobile security app available to the public on Apple iOS and Android platforms, was created to help users navigate cybersecurity threats targeting the data and information within financial, health, business, shopping and messaging apps on mobile devices.

To further bridge the digital divide, Dallas launched the Red Cloud Neighborhood Smart Cities Pilot project. The pilot created the city’s first smart community by granting free city Wi-Fi to 190 homes in a neighborhood with a reputation for drug and crime problems and in need of support based on the city’s racial equity plan. The pilot also outfitted the community with 52 technology devices to monitor air quality, provide AI-enabled situational awareness and create an LED-controlled lighting network.

A few years after the launch of the Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (DBI), the team has grown to 50 people, serving more than 40 agencies across the city to develop 50 data-driven dashboards, apps, interactive maps and more. DBI recently released a Domestic Violence Crimes dashboard that provides updated data that is used to analyze and assess domestic violence factors and patterns across the city, allowing officials to make recommendations to improve services, provide training and create interventions.

*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, Industry Insider — Texas’ parent company.