Federal Government Spending: Less Transparency in a World of Open Data

There are inflated expectations and much confusion about what blockchain really means for government agencies. Despite there being significant interest in blockchain, there's modest action taken in education and government. Gartner predicts that by 2021, 5% of government entities will adopt blockchain as transparent, authoritative ledger for some official records. Through 2018, blockchain named projects are likely to deliver business value without actually using blockchain. This webinar, will dispel myths and provide clarity on how blockchain works and how it can be useful for government agencies.

State and local governments are tasked with securely connecting one or multiple of five things to support mission-critical needs: People, locations, data, clouds and applications. With a renewed focus on government cybersecurity, agencies face increased pressure to keep those connections secure. There’s growing attention to the physical security of government data centers and an increase in the adoption of cloud strategies that explore vendor-neutral data center options. And as governments look to future-proof their operations and keep pace with the ever-changing digital world, more agencies are leveraging networking and interconnection capabilities that can dynamically deliver services from multiple clouds or networks around the country. Having effective security across these clouds will be critical in enabling agency success.

In a July 2022 Center for Digital Government survey of state and local government IT leaders, an overwhelming 94% of respondents said they are experiencing challenges in recruiting qualified technologists to fill open positions, particularly in cybersecurity and data analytics roles. More than one-third of survey respondents noted vacancy rates of 10% to 20%.

Open and timely communication between government and constituents is critical to community success. Whether for planning budgets, measuring program impact or enhancing emergency response, a dedicated public participation platform is the best way to identify and address community needs. Community engagement software can help agencies create a central database to personalize communications for hard-to-reach residents. And purpose-built reporting and analytics tools mean agencies can review thousands of written responses with a single click using artificial intelligence.