WebNews                                            September 7th 2015 |  Vol 18, Issue 3
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UPCOMING & RECENT EVENTS
Cook to Chair Session and Lead Workshop at Smart Cities Week
September 15-17, 2015
Washington D.C.
CTG Program Director Meghan Cook was invited to chair and moderate an egovernment and open data session at the Smart Cities Council's first ever 'Smart Cities Week' in Washington D.C.  The week-long event, designed for City leaders, will address the question "How can my city become a smart city?" Cook will also co-lead a half day workshop entitled 'Leveraging Data to Combat Urban Blight' with Tarik Abdelazim from the Center for Community Progress. 
 
Pardo gives keynote, Lanza presents paper at IFIP
August 30-September 2, 2015
Thessaloniki, Greece
CTG Director Theresa Pardo presented the keynote speech at the 14th Annual IFIP Electronic Government (EGOV) and 7th Electronic Participation (ePart) Conference. In addition, CTG Visiting Scholar Beatriz Lanza presented a paper she co-authored with J. Ramon Gil-Garcia and Fernando Gimenez entitled "The Value of Commonly Available and Low Cost Technologies: Towards a Business Model for SMS-Based Government Services."

Canestraro participates in NYS Digital Summit
September 1-2, 2015
Albany, NY
CTG Program Director Donna Canestraro participated in the New York Digital Government Summit, hosted by Government Technology. Canestraro serves on the Advisory Board of the Summit, which provides the opportunity for state and local government and technology leaders to discuss best practices, see the latest in technology solutions, and celebrate the Best of New York Awards.

Dawes presents keynote at CONIP
August 19-20, 2015 
São Paulo, Brazil
CTG Senior Fellow Sharon Dawes presented as a keynote speaker at the Conference on Information Technology Innovation in Public Management (CONIP) in São Paulo, Brazil. CONIP is the main conference in Brazil that is focused on technology use and innovation within the public sector.

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CTG Staff "On the Move"

Promotions:
Paula Rickert was promoted to Assistant Business Manager. Paula, who began working at CTG in 2004, provides support to the general business operations of purchasing services, human resources, financial management and event coordination.

 Megan Sutherland was promoted to Program Associate. Megan focuses on project definition and planning, work plan development, data collection and analysis, preparing articles and reports, and designing and conducting group facilitation activities.

New Hire: 
Kelsey Butz was hired as
Communication Manager. Kelsey is responsible for planning and implementing marketing efforts to create global awareness and understanding of the Center's projects, research, and expertise.

CTG Invited to Join City of Albany's Broadband Initiative Working Group

Derek Werthmuller, Director of Technology Innovation and Services at CTG, is participating in the city of Albany's Broadband Initiative Working Group in order to help expand broadband access and bridge the digital divide.

 

In addition to CTG, the working group includes the Albany Public Library, the Downtown and Central Ave BIDS, the City School District of Albany, Green Tech Charter School, the Albany Housing Authority, Common Council Member Dan Herring, Albany Promise, and area business leaders.

 

Together, the group of nine community and business partners will review the broadband needs of the City and provide a blueprint for how broadband service can move forward so that all citizens, regardless of socioeconomic status, can have access to broadband internet service.

 

Click here to find out more.

 

Students Create Health Data Visualization Tool for NYS Department of Health
Interns at CTG spent this summer working on a variety of projects pertaining to data visualization, cyber security, process management, web development, and more as part of CTG's Summer Student Lab, which aims to provide students with experiential learning opportunities to enhance their education while at the same producing innovative tools and techniques for our government partners. Three of CTG's outstanding interns came through the Brazilian Scientific Mobility Program (BSMP), a government sponsored program in Brazil that provides bright and dedicated students with the opportunity to travel abroad and learn from the world's best colleges and universities.

Amanda Reis, Fellipe Gurgel, and Gabriel Fernandes are undergraduate computer science students from Brazil who were eager to spend the summer working and learning from CTG. They have completed their work in CTG's Summer Student Lab where working together with Kashif Zaidi, a Computer Science graduate student at the University at Albany, they created Data Visualization Prototypes for the New York State Department of Health that culminated with a final presentation to Department of Health staff members on August 12th.

The idea of the project was straightforward, but the task was complex: take data that is currently published and publicly available on the Department of Health's open data platform, Health Data NY, and create a system prototype that would be more user friendly, increase capability for consumers, and more efficiently connect the data between Health Data NY and the Department of Health's public facing, static website. This prototype focused specifically on working with the Department of Health's eQARR (Quality Assurance Reporting Requirements) data tables that were developed by the New York State Department of Health to enable consumers to evaluate the quality of health care services provided by New York State's managed care plans. CTG developed ways to dynamically process this data and produce graphs and charts to visualize the tabular information.

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CTG & Broadband Program Office Launch Resource Center
During the 3rd NYS Broadband Summit, the New York State Broadband Program Office (BPO) unveiled the state's first Broadband Deployment Support and Resource Center. The portal, designed to help facilitate broadband deployment in NYS, was envisioned by the BPO and developed by CTG.

Working in partnership with the BPO, CTG developed a tool that will be instrumental in helping to streamline broadband deployment for Governor Cuomo's $500 million New NY Broadband Program.

The NYS Broadband Deployment Support and Resource Center will be pivotal in helping to ensure broadband deployment in New York State is efficient and effective.Users of the Support Center have the ability to electronically report issues that could potentially impact or delay broadband infrastructure projects. These reports will then be accessible by the Broadband Program Office, who will track and help resolve issues in a more efficient way than previously possible.

The Resource Center is designed to ease the burden on broadband providers, municipalities, counties, and other leaders involved in expanding broadband access by enabling easier, faster access to the documentation related to broadband deployment. Users of the Resource Center can quickly and efficiently find documentation related to broadband expansion. This "living" website will be expanded and enhanced as new and revised resources are added.
CTG Staff Win Awards
Paula Rickert, CTG's Assistant Business Manager, was presented with the Judy L. Genshaft Initiatives for Women Award on Thursday, July 16th. Presenting the awards was University at Albany Provost James R. Stellar, pictured with Paula at left. Each year, the Initiatives for Women awards are presented to select UAlbany students and staff as a way to provide the means for them to advance their educational and professional goals. Paula, in addition to her responsibilities at CTG, is enrolled in the University at Albany's Masters of Business Administration evening program.

J. Ramon Gil Garcia, Research Director and Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy, received distinction as a Level 3 National Researcher from the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology. Dr. Gil-Garcia is the first researcher with a focus on digital government to receive this distinction. The Mexican System of Researchers has five levels, with this distinction being the highest a researcher can obtain before becoming emeritus as a result of a life-long career of research contributions.
 
CTG's Research Director and Fellows are authors of top cited Government Information Quarterly articles
CTG Research Director J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, Senior Fellow Sharon Dawes, and Faculty Fellow Luis Luna-Reyes are the authors or co-authors of four of the most cited Government Information Quarterly articles since 2010. Government Information Quarterly is an internationally renowned journal that examines the intersection of policy, information technology, government, and the public.