Colorado Digital Service: 2021 Is the Year of Civic Tech
Source: GovTech February 8th, 2020
The Colorado Digital Service was an experiment that began with a simple hypothesis; if we could attract tech talent using a “tour of service” model and couple it with modern software delivery practices, like product management and human-centered design, we could help to improve the experience for people engaging with government services.
We've shown that this model works. The bet that Gov. Polis and the Legislature placed on us has delivered a solid return on investment. Here are some highlights from 2020:
We scrubbed in on Exposure Notifications with Apple and Google, which are used by more than 1 million Coloradans to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
We partnered with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and the Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) to help procure and launch the Dr. Justina case investigation and contact tracing system across all 53 county Local Public Health Agencies (LPHA)s. This effort saved millions of dollars and allowed LPHAs to coordinate their response to COVID-19 by sharing data with one another. Hundreds of thousands of contact tracing interviews have been logged in the system to date.
We leveraged user research to lead the strategic procurement of the Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS) grants management system. These funds help reduce juvenile involvement in the criminal justice system and support victim service programs by distributing over $60 million to more than 300 grantees across Colorado.
We partnered with 18F and members of the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) and Joint Technology Committee (JTC) to discuss agile budgeting and how to oversee and create accountability for technology projects.
Stephanie Cain, user experience (UX) lead, was elected to the Agile Government Leaders board of directors as the public sector representative.
We hosted a Denver Startup Week panel on our COVID-19 efforts that included panelists Sarah Tuneberg and Brad Feld.
We’ve built a talent pipeline of hundreds of Colorado’s best engineers, designers, and product managers by being active in Slack channels and the Colorado technology community.
We’ve published blog posts and articles on building diverse teams in civic technology and have been mentioned in articles about transforming digital government in the Washington Post, Associated Press (AP), and more.
We continue to embed with the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) and the child welfare case management system to improve the technology that helps more than 5,000 case workers and partners serve thousands of children and families in the child welfare system.
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Photo by Andrew Coop on Unsplash