Government Technology

Last year, months before the city finalized its 2012-2014 budget and business plan, Nenshi and the city launched a citywide engagement process to get citizens to participate in drafting the sort of budget they wanted for their city, an effort dubbed "Our City. Our Budget. Our Future."

Citizens create a profile and as they participate in discussions or offer up commentary, they earn points and badges and compete with others to rise up in ranking on a community interaction leader board.

More than 800 miles of fiber-optic cable hum invisibly underground in Lafayette, a city of 120,000, delivering Internet speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second — rare for even major cities. The cutting-edge connectivity in the heart of Cajun country is due not to a private telecom giant but to a public municipal service that offers higher speeds and often lower rates than the private sector.

Open data and open source software could make Raleigh open for more business.

Last month San Francisco announced a partnership with Code for America to create a "civic startup accelerator," as well as the appointment of Jay Nath to the newly created position of San Francisco’s chief innovation officer.

The database is one of several Web-based tools that the agency has created of late as it aims to increase transparency

Digitizing the application process, once time-consuming and paper-heavy for new and existing developers and business owners, is key to making the city a more appealing place for developers to relocate.

The Mountain West gradually is becoming Google country.

Governor Brian Schweitzer announced today that State of Montana will be joining the Montana University System’s ultra-high speed telecommunications network which will save the State $500,000 in annual costs.

"As we’ve seen from disruptive companies like TurboTax, SeeClickFix, and Socrata, there’s a real opening for new businesses in the civic space; we want to turn those examples from the exception into the norm. We want entrepreneurs everywhere asking, ‘How can I disrupt government?’"