This morning, our great new General Manager of the city's Information Technology Agency, Randi Levin (who came to us after heading up IT for NBC/Universal), invited me to address the employees of the department and to share some of my vision for using technology to improve the lives of Angelenos.
I thanked ITA for all that they have done to innovate and to provide services to our city. From our early leadership with e-permits (we have given out more on-line e-permits than any other local government in the country) to our new archived video coverage of the City Council meetings, ITA has proven itself.
For the second half of my talk, I pointed out some of the areas I have been exploring to help use technology to serve our city's residents, from the 12 to 2 project I am undertaking to reduce the amount of bureaucracy new businesses face in getting opened to 911 camera phone technology. I also highlighted some of my favorite on-line innovations from governments around the world:
- A virtual police station in Italy
- Wellington (New Zealand) City Council's Public Input pages
- One-stop permitting from Utah and Holland
- The City of Windsor (Canada) and its reverse 311 system
Earlier this year, I was proud to be honored by Government Technology as one of the nation's "Top 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers" working on technology in government today and I was pleased to accept the award from the Center for Digital Government for one of the nation's top three local government web sites on behalf of the city in 2005. I have been able to help use technology to connect Angelenos to the city services they need because of the great personnel we have at our Information Technology Agency. If you have any good ideas for us, please let us know, so we can keep moving Los Angeles forward.