Posted by Scott McIntyre, Director, Google Enterprise Government Team

What can you do with 24 hours? Google teamed with the States of Colorado and Wyoming to ask more than 100 passionate developers at our inaugural GovDev Challenge, a live coding competition in Denver on May 17 and 18. After an all-nighter cranking out ideas, the coders came up with solutions to transform the way state governments work by using technology to bring innovative ideas to life.

Google collaborated with the State of Colorado and State of Wyoming to host the Challenge. We worked closely with the CIO Offices of both Colorado and Wyoming to identify tough problems that were meaningful to the states and able to be addressed during the 24-hour coding challenge. We’d like to give programmers from across the country the unique chance to make a real difference. To support the event, Wyoming CIO Flint Waters sent a school bus packed with programmers and spectators to Denver to attend. “It’s a great example of how to increase public engagement to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government,” said Brandon Williams from the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology.

As they coded their way to better government services, participants got the chance to master tools like Google Cloud Platform, which enables developers to build, test and deploy applications on Google’s reliable infrastructure. They also used other Google solutions such as Google Maps, Google Apps and the Google Search Appliance.

The specific challenges weren’t announced until game day, so participants showed up having no idea what kinds of applications they’d be developing. Colorado requested tools for managing records and tracking donations during natural disasters. “We’re looking to you to make the lives easier of citizens and volunteers who show up at disaster assistance centers,” Williams told the crowd.

Winners included the GovSafe team, who created a website that allows victims from disasters and volunteers to fill out a form online that could spare them the hassle of entering the same information multiple times for various paper documents. Recognizing that the government is not quite ready to go fully paperless, GovSafe incorporated hard copies into their system and used a printer to demonstrate the impact.

For the Wyoming challenge, competitors developed solutions allowing the public to see how taxpayer dollars are being spent. Although that data is publicly available, individuals can’t gather and visualize it without help from government workers. “This should really help us provide better information to our citizens so they know what’s going on,” explained Flint Waters, Wyoming’s CIO.

The CodeRangers team placed first for designing a mobile and desktop tool that displays the geographic distribution of public sector payments to private vendors. The public can easily see the location of vendors on a Google Map and can tell how much payment goes out of the state. They can drill down to the department level and see their spending patterns. They can also run queries by vendor names. “Governmental transparency is vitally important for citizen oversight of how our democratic process works,” said team member Anne Gunn. “The money comes from all of us, and we should know how it is being spent.”
Congratulations to everyone who took part in the GovDev Challenge, from the coders who traveled from far and wide to the officials who helped us with every step of the planning. We hope the event will serve as a blueprint for future partnerships between Google and the government, forged with the shared goal of solving tough problems with private sector talent. Together we help transform government, one innovation at a time.

Posted by LeAnne Browning, Lieutenant and Video Integration Center Project Director, Atlanta Police Department

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Lieutenant LeAnne Browning from the Atlanta Police Department (APD). She and her colleagues have incorporated search and mapping data into police operations to make the department more efficient. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At the Atlanta Police Department, our 2,000-plus sworn officers are devoted to working with the community to develop innovative problem-solving strategies. Thanks to these efforts, the crime rate dropped by 44% between 2000 and 2012. We’re proud of our strong reputation among Atlanta residents and law enforcement agencies around the world.

But we know we can always do better, which is why we started Operation Shield back in 2007. The goal is to further prevent crime and improve emergency preparedness with cutting-edge technology and private sector partnerships. One major component is our Video Integration Center (VIC), a surveillance hub and physical security information management platform built with Google Maps technology that gives us instant access to 2,500 cameras throughout the city. When a 911 call comes in, it’s automatically plotted in Google Maps and paired with the nearest live camera images. That way, operators can give real-time information to responding officers rushing to the scene.

Now we’re using Google Search Appliance (GSA) to make the VIC even more powerful. Our partner, Edge360, helped us develop Search360, a search and investigative tool built with GSA that allows operators to search across multiple databases for details like prior incidents at the same address, license plate numbers or descriptions of subjects. Since the system is integrated with Google Maps, it runs automated searches based on geocoding to give analysts fast visual representation of search results. This helps them generate a photographic lineup to send to the responding detective’s mobile data terminal, smartphone or tablet before he or she reaches the crime scene.

Gathering information for investigations used to be slow and tedious. As a detective seven years ago, I had to travel to the scene, interview victims and witnesses, then spend hours or even days back in the office running searches in multiple databases, such as our mugshots database or our report management system. With help from Edge360 and Google, that process is almost instantaneous.

When I joined the department 19 years ago, I never imagined how technology could work in tandem with the traditional tools police officers rely on—our instinct and experience. But that’s exactly what’s happening with Operation Shield. We’re hoping it will improve the quality of life for Atlanta residents by making our streets, parks and neighborhoods safer and more prepared than ever before.

Posted by Gregory Urban, CTO, State of Maryland

Editor's note: Today our guest blogger is Gregory Urban from the State of Maryland. Greg is the Deputy CIO and CTO of the State of Maryland. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

According to the State New Economy Index, the State of Maryland ranks third out of the top five states that are at the forefront of the nation's movement toward a global, innovation-based new economy. So it’s no surprise Maryland is a leader in adopting innovative technologies to improve citizen services. But with 54,000 state employees scattered across 60 independent agencies, most with their own IT department, the Maryland state government faces challenges in creating a unified technology infrastructure.

To streamline IT infrastructure and improve collaboration between agencies, the Department of Information Technology is rolling out Google Apps for Government for all 54,000 employees. Previously, each agency ran its own email servers — from Microsoft Exchange and Novell, to in-house platforms. We knew to move these disparate email systems into the cloud would decrease complexity and improve intra-agency collaboration, but any cloud-based solution we selected had to meet high security standards.

With Google Apps for Government, all state government data and emails remain in a secure cloud that is compliant with FISMA standards. With over 50 different CIOs working in different agencies, Google Apps allows Maryland to manage security from one central point. Instead of each agency buying and running its own security systems, now Google lets us secure data on a global, enterprise-wide scale. From a central IT point of view, Google Apps lets us execute mobile device management and data leak prevention across all agencies, as well as track every email and document. Previously, each individual IT department had to install appliances to manage these issues on their own.

On a practical level, Google Apps has helped agencies improve productivity and collaboration. The State Police quickly adopted Gmail for all 2,000 employees, 1,400 of which are sworn officers. They have also been a frontrunner in using Drive to streamline daily workflow, across laptops, tablets and mobile devices. They use Docs, Forms and Spreadsheets to regularly report incidents, arrests and investigations. A sergeant's weekly reporting job that used to take 6-7 hours now takes less than an hour, freeing up officers to focus on more mission critical tasks.

What’s more, much of the innovation has come from the ground-up. Because Google Apps provides rich functionalities and is easy-to-use, troopers without any IT background have been able to create internal apps to make their jobs easier. One employee built a system in Spreadsheets to manage the schedule of the troopers across all shifts 24x7x365, making it easy to track hours worked, leave hours, and that schedules adhere to agency policy. Previously, this was done using printouts and pencils, creating lots of complications across 1,400 troopers in 22 barracks throughout the state.

Google Apps has also created a new sense of cohesiveness among the entire workforce. Employees used to have email addresses unique to their agencies, creating an identity that emphasizes their agency relationship. But with Gmail, we provide every employee with a maryland.gov email. State employees now have a stronger sense they are a part of One Maryland, a team representing the state government serving Maryland’s 5.9 million residents. We’re impressed at how effectively Google Apps has brought disparate agencies closer together, making us into a stronger team.

Posted by Bill Oates, CIO, City of Boston

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Bill Oates, Chief Information Officer of the City of Boston. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

In November, the City of Boston was named the #1 Digital City in America by the Center for Digital Government. While this recognition is based on a variety of measures, a key element is the city’s efforts to engage and connect with constituents using mobile technology and social media. As a tech-savvy city, we’re always looking for the best IT tools to help our government run smarter, innovate more effectively and provide better services for our citizens. Our most recent innovation was the successful migration of 76,000 email accounts from a collection of our premise based systems, mostly Microsoft Exchange, to Google Apps. Not only are all city departments, including the Boston Police Department, now on Google Apps, but every teacher and more than 50,000 public school students each has an individual Google Apps account.

Our new unified, cloud-based communication system is pretty big change from our old set-up. Our agencies worked together to manage their mail environments, with resources focused on mail administration and working across the group structures. Our largest department, the public school district, operated on a very separate environment that was in need of a major technical upgrade.

As the city evaluated an upgrade to communication and collaboration infrastructure, we clearly saw cloud services as the most cost effective, supportable platform to address our future needs. In 2013, following an extensive review of the market, the city initiated a rigorous RFP process that attracted an wide array of bids, including multiple Microsoft and Google cloud offerings. A selection committee composed of members from our City IT organization, Boston Police, and Boston Public Schools evaluated 10 proposals based on both cost and technical capabilities. The committee unanimously chose Google Apps based on its ability to meet the needs of a fast moving city while providing a secure cloud environment.

Going Google on such a large scale has many benefits. We gained reliability and security compared to our prior configuration of Microsoft Exchange servers, which required extensive upkeep, upgrades and patches. The Boston Police department, for example, now has a reliable, scalable system that supports its 24/7 operation with Gmail’s 99.9% uptime guarantee. More than 3,000 police employees, including 2,100 sworn officers, use Google Apps to communicate with one another as well as to streamline reporting processes.

All in all, we’ve securely moved more than twenty million email messages to the cloud. Every city employee — from police, to education, public works, transportation and beyond — has a Google account and a boston.gov email address accessible from any device, anywhere. We are confident Google’s secure, FISMA-compliant cloud environment ensures that city data is safe and private.

The Google Apps platform now sits at the center of our drive to infuse innovation in every aspect of city government and enhance collaboration. After 20 years in office, Mayor Thomas Menino is departing – making way for incoming Mayor Marty Walsh, and we’re proud to hand the new administration the country’s most advanced, fully-functioning, cloud-based communications system to keep our city at the forefront of technology innovation.

Posted by Kristin D. Russell, Secretary of Technology and State Chief Information Officer, Governor’s Office of Information Technology, State of Colorado

Editor's note: Colorado has enticed all sorts of pioneers since its Wild West beginnings. We’re excited to highlight a handful of these trailblazers - the intrepid entrepreneurs, aspiring micro-brewers and ambitious thought leaders - who have helped create the adventurous and innovative culture the Centennial State is known for. Today, we hear from Kristin D. Russell, Secretary of Technology and State Chief Information Officer for the State of Colorado’s Office of Information Technology.

The Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) is leading an effort to transform government through the use of shared information technology services. As we shift from “business as usual” processes and tools towards innovative solutions that enable the efficient, effective, and elegant delivery of services, we look more and more to cloud-based services and solutions. In fact, we have published a “Cloud First” strategy for Colorado.

The move to Google Apps for Government in Colorado allowed us to replace our 15 siloed and disparate email systems, and the 50 servers supporting them, into a single, cloud-based solution. Now, not only do our more than 26,000 employees have a common email, calendar and collaboration system, they have the ability to work together on Google Docs, allowing teams to work together and share information across departments. This accessibility has also helped to enable a BYOD (bring your own device) program that lets employees work the way they want to work – even when they’re not sitting at their desks.

We are also taking advantage of Google Sites. Since Google Sites doesn’t require extensive web development skills, state agencies are now empowered to create helpful resources, both internally and externally, for a number of programs. TobaccoFreeCO.org, for example, was built on Google Sites and provides information on the effects of second-hand smoke and resources on quitting smoking. When unprecedented flooding devasted many areas of Colorado in recent months, we built a Google Map to help organize recovery efforts and then set up the ColoradoUnited.com website to provide the latest updates and provide an interactive way to assist flood victims as they rebuild.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper often talks about the “three E’s” – making government more efficient, effective, and elegant. In Colorado we in the Governor’s Office of Information Technology are in the business of using innovative technology to accomplish just that.

Posted by Matt Jarrard, Health Planning Director, Georgia Department of Community Health

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Matt Jarrard, Deputy Director of the Healthcare Facility Regulation Division and Health Planning Director of Georgia’s Department of Community Health, which licenses and regulates health care facilities for the state. Tune into today’s webinar at 11:00am PST to hear more about how GaMap2Care is making a difference. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.


While the State of Georgia is known for its peaches and the Atlanta Braves, it also takes pride in finding ways to make life easier for its citizens. The Georgia Department of Community Health oversees programs that serve 10 million people and regulates 7,000 health care facilities, including nearly 2,000 personal care homes. In keeping with our goals of being lean and responsive, we found a cost-effective way to serve the community with GaMap2Care, an application built on Google Maps. The app helps the public and government officials locate, visualize and monitor all the state’s licensed health care facilities.

Using the app, people can locate facilities such as hospitals and personal care homes based on specialty, location, size and number of beds. They can also see satellite views or zoom in on street views. The app shows inspection reports for many facilities and other information which had previously required an open record request. Virtual tours let families quickly see if a facility meets their needs.

GaMap2Care is intuitive to use because of widespread familiarity with Google Maps. The app’s rich features allow us to help people in a variety of ways. For example, lawmakers have often asked for the number of nursing homes in their district. Staff would have needed to manually compare lists prepared in a separate report to district boundaries. Now, GaMap2Care provides this information all on one map that allows lawmakers to easily determine which district the facilities belong to.

GaMap2Care is also helping state workers and officials serve the community better. Analysts setting health care policy can now more easily identify underserved areas. In addition, the state’s 165 health care facility surveyors investigating complaints or non-compliance issues can calculate distances and plan trips before they hit the road, saving time and improving efficiency. We also added additional map layers, such as populations and weather, that let officials see what facilities might be affected before a natural disaster.

The app was designed and developed internally by existing staff. The ease of Google Maps’ customization enabled a programmer with no previous Geographic Information System (GIS) experience to integrate data from different sources into the map. Compared to other solutions, we found Google Maps to be easier to use, faster to load and offering more customization. A license from a traditional Geographic Information System would have required extensive user training and was expected to be considerably more than a Google Maps license.

With GaMap2Care, state workers can be productive and efficient, and citizens have access to information that saves them time and helps them make critical informed health care decisions. We look forward to making GaMap2Care even more useful with the launch of the mobile version of the application in the near future, and will continue to enhance and expand features and functionality.

Posted by Derek Kruse, CIO, Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, Nebraska

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Derek Kruse, CIO of the Douglas Omaha Technology Commission (DOTComm), which provides municipal technical services to the City of Omaha and Douglas County, Nebraska. Be sure to join Innovation for the Nation, a virtual summit featuring government customers, streaming live on July 31st and August 1st. And see what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Derek Kruse, CIO

The City of Omaha and Douglas County have something many municipalities lack, a collaborative relationship. With Omaha located within Douglas County, we are fortunate to live in a community that values working together to solve complex challenges. Our cooperation has led to many innovative solutions, including the formation of the Douglas Omaha Technology Commission (DOTComm). Another example of this collaborative spirit is our decision to upgrade our email and calendaring platform. In order to improve government productivity and efficiency, DOTComm has been tasked with moving approximately 5,000 city and county employees in more than 70 departments to Google Apps for Government.

In May, after a thorough and exhaustive evaluation process, the DOT.Comm Oversight Committee approved the proposal to implement Google Apps for Government. The decision was endorsed by the Mayor and also unanimously approved by both the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners. We decided to go with Google Apps because it not only meets our current needs, but it offers new collaboration features at a fraction of the cost it would take to upgrade our existing system. We chose SADA Systems, a Google Apps Premier Enterprise Reseller, to help with this transition and serve as our deployment partner. It is obvious that SADA’s focus on training and ensuring a smooth migration will enable us to quickly and easily adopt Google Apps.

Moving to Google Apps will provide tremendous benefits. Our current system is more than 10 years old and lacks any modern features. Employees struggle to access information on their mobile devices and people spend valuable time deleting emails because our mailboxes do not have enough space. Given the age of our system, we have seen a steep increase in outages as well. That will all change when we move to Google Apps for Government. We will offer a more secure, stable, modern and scalable cloud solution to the City and County. Employees will now be able to communicate instantly and work collaboratively online, even if they are miles apart. Mailbox size alone has people cheering -- one of our employees made the comparison that we will be moving from a shot glass to a swimming pool!

We started out this process to fix our aged email system. We have discovered this is much more than a fix -- this is the future -- and another big step in the ongoing collaboration between Omaha and Douglas County. The next few months will be very exciting as we implement Google Apps and we are very thrilled to be rolling up our sleeves once again to improve our community together.

Posted by Gary Bateman, CIO, Iowa Workforce Development

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Gary Bateman, CIO for the Iowa Workforce Development. Be sure to join Innovation for the Nation, a virtual summit featuring government customers, streaming live on July 31st and August 1st. And see what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

In Iowa, our mission at Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) is to provide a comprehensive statewide system of employment services, education and regulations to ensure the economic security of Iowa’s workers, businesses and communities. An important part of our effort is to identify and prevent unemployment insurance fraud. Our efforts have cut the rate of fraud to less than 6%, but we are not satisfied to stop there.

Detecting and preventing unemployment insurance fraud is challenging because of the high volume of claims we receive. Often times, we’re not able to detect the discrepancy until after multiple payments have been made. This lag means the bad actors can take the money and move on, making it difficult and expensive to recover the payment. We went looking for technologies to provide an even better rate of fraud detection, allowing us to act faster to prevent this criminal activity and save the state money.

After a competitive bid process, we selected Fraud Detection as a Service (FDaaS) by Pondera Solutions, a Google Enterprise Partner, to help us identify and prevent improper payments. FDaaS is a Google-powered solution that uses Google Prediction API, Google Maps, Google Street View and Google Earth.

With FDaaS, suspicious claims are proactively flagged by the system, which alerts IWD employees about potentially fraudulent claims. The claims are plotted on a heatmap built on Google Maps to identify areas with the highest fraud incidents and determine where to put more investigative resources. We also use Google Street View to check the validity of businesses that submit claims. All of these data points are compiled into a custom, configured dashboard that helps us quickly examine claimants and employers to validate whether these claims are valid. This dashboard will replace many of our manual processes of checking disparate databases. And because Google helps to integrate relevant market data into our validation processes, we can parse massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently, allowing us to identify advanced schemes and rapidly respond to potential issues. With all this information available at our fingertips, we can then examine claimants and employers to validate whether these claims are proper much more efficiently.

Using the new solution, IWD will improve accuracies in Unemployment Insurance, benefiting both the employers and citizens of Iowa. Our continuing efforts will help assure that the vast majority of unemployment insurance benefits are delivered to the citizens who need and deserve our assistance.

Posted by David Mihalchik, Google Apps for Government Team

Last month, the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) successfully completed the migration of all 4,500 Archives employees to Google Apps for Government. The National Archives is the country’s record keeper, preserving and providing public access to hundreds of years of historical documents and terabytes of modern media. Last year, NARA decided to move to cloud-based email and put out an open RFP asking for the best solutions to update its email and collaboration tools. The agency received many bids proposing a range of different solutions and late last year announced its selection of Google Apps with Unisys, a Google Apps Authorized Reseller, as the implementation partner.

The Archives chose an aggressive timeline, getting the new collaboration tools to its employees in just a few short months, one of the fastest transitions that we’ve seen. In keeping with best practices, the migration proceeded in three phases: an IT pilot, the early adopters, and the global go live.

By replacing an aging, on-site email system with Google’s modern tools, NARA employees are already discovering the benefits of Google Apps. For an agency that understands the importance of storing documents, the addition of approximately 22 terabytes of Google Drive storage allows employees to access and share their documents with ease.

I’ve spent more than a dozen years helping government adopt new technology, and never have I seen an entire agency migrate to a new tool so quickly and with such enthusiasm. We’re proud to bring Archives employees more modern, reliable tools to help them do their important work of preserving our nation’s history.

Posted by Crystal Brenner, Administrative Assistant, Macomb County Clerk / Register of Deeds

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Crystal Brenner, Administrative Assistant for the Macomb County Clerk / Register of Deeds. See what other organizations that use the Google Search Appliance have to say.

Last year, Macomb County set out to improve public real estate search, to help property owners reduce the risk of real estate fraud, and make it easier for Macomb County property owners to protect their property rights. Along the way we may have created one of the nation's best and perhaps one of the first high-tech real estate records search and fraud detection tools. We were inspired to act by a CBS 60 Minutes exposé uncovering crucial ownership documents for real estate throughout the nation that are often bogus or even nonexistent.

In the past, Macomb County property records were available on paper or online in an electronic format that only allowed searching on a few, limited fields, such as owner name or property description, indexed differently throughout the years. Inconsistent indexing is an issue for registers of deeds throughout the nation, and it points to the need for a search solution that can find stored electronic deeds with ease.

In partnership with Xerox, we set out to do better and help owners detect potential fraud. We scanned every Macomb County real estate record - millions of public records, from dirt to present day. Because we wanted an intuitive, familiar search interface that would let us look quickly through millions of documents, we immediately chose the Google Search Appliance.

Called the “Super Index,” we launched a public prototype in September 2012. The Super Index currently includes millions of pages of public Macomb County real estate documents, going back all the way to 1818. And each year, we’ll add more than 180,000 new documents.

Users can search the Super Index at no charge. What makes it “super” is that searches may now include all recognized text on the documents, including witness and notary names. Once an individual finds the documents they’re looking for, and reviews a thumbnail to be sure it’s what they need, we either provide a link or send a PDF file of those public documents for $6 per document.

One user said, “This is great stuff! Once again, the Macomb County Clerk/Register of Deed’s office is providing the public with a useful tech-savvy resource to gain easy access to public information, with the convenience [of access] from one’s home or office.”

For many people, owning a home is a key part of the American Dream, and we wanted to give our citizens in Macomb the power to protect that dream. We took bold action to combat fraud and educate homeowners about their rights and property. With help from Xerox and the Google Search Appliance, Macomb County is making the search for the American Dream a little easier.

Join us for a Google Hangout On Air on April 24, 2013 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EST to see for yourself how the Google Search Appliance is making a difference in our city.

Memorandum of a fee paid by Thomas Edison for a patent on "Electric Lamps."
(image courtesy of the National Archives)