Mobile Solutions Connecting Citizens with Government
On behalf of Kevin Koh, Director, Government Solutions, Microsoft
Government agencies often deal with the same types of issues as other businesses. With increased pressures to cut costs, minimize risk, and keep pace with change, government agencies need modern, secure and affordable mobile solutions to ensure their employees are able to stay connected and productive wherever they are. Government ultimately exists – whether it be local, state, or federal – to serve the populace and to give a voice to the community. Being able to easily connect with colleagues and citizens while in the office or on the go empowers employees to do their job more effectively by using the best means of communications for the situation. Having access to a familiar and consistent experience across a variety of devices based on their needs is very important as well.
Government organizations are interested in mobile solutions for civic engagement, emergency management, business intelligence, situational awareness, productivity and collaboration. They’re looking for opportunities to help citizens and cities respond to non-emergency calls and help officials and workers access to data allowing them to quickly respond and react to real emergency situations. They’re also looking for ways to allow government officials and professionals to access insight and analytics to better prepare for emergency situations overall. And as with many organizations, government organizations are looking for ways to help their workers access data and collaborate. Microsoft and its partners help bring these mobile solutions to life.
For example, Accela is doing some very interesting things when it comes to mobile applications. Using their Civic Hero Windows 8 app, citizens can report non-emergency community issues to their local government, including graffiti, potholes, or damaged property. Not only does this ensure that city officials are kept up to speed on what is happening in the community, but gives citizens a powerful and easy way to stay connected with their local community.
And to support an increasingly mobile workforce, Accela is also creating apps to support productivity and transparency for government employees. Apps like Accela Inspector provide permitting, licensing and code-enforcement professionals with functionality designed to perform onsite inspections or investigations from their Windows 8 device.
Another great example of how mobility can help government agencies can be seen with TIBCO’s Spotfire Metrics app. This app gathers all of the important government metrics into one place and makes them accessible on any device. Similar to monitoring the financial markets on TV, users can focus on the metrics that matter most to them. This helps increase productivity and ensure all the data you need to make good decisions is right in front of you.
Here are some additional mobile apps that make government work better:
BiSm@rt: Their Better City Indicators is a Windows 8 dashboard app that blends key performance indicators with those of the World Bank. The City of Barcelona is leveraging advanced big data analytics capabilities on an open platform to maintain a modern technology infrastructure so that it can deliver quality services to citizens and to the millions of tourists who visit each year.
iLink Systems: The SAF Windows 8 app helps officers or employees from global relief organizations track their crew, convoys and assets across the world and reports on the status of each one of these resources. Employees can view such information on a GIS interface on Windows 8 devices to see their globally spread command and control rooms. This enables the field crew to deliver and execute on their jobs in an
efficient manner.
Esri: The ArcGIS app lets you explore a gallery of compelling maps that showcase relevant demographic, commercial, and environmental topics. It can also provide situational awareness and includes end to end view of assets to provide government workers and official’s ability to plan for emergencies.
Read the original blog post on Microsoft® Vertical Industries.
