Tag: Technology & IT Procurement

Technology & IT Procurement

Implementing eGovernment: 3 Lessons from Estonia

State governments across the country have switched to work from home to comply with quarantine orders. This has closed some state offices, significantly reduced the hours of other state offices, and has caused wide-spread delays in citizens receiving services across the country. This has created a demand to expand eGovernment services and, according to the United Nations survey, some world governments have responded to this demand by making more government services available online. As more states expand eGovernment services, lessons can be learned from how one country went almost 100% online years ago: Estonia.

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Technology & IT Procurement

Back to School Technology: Are You Ready?

Most districts and states have begun working through the logistics of returning to school for faculty, staff, and students. Many lessons were learned over the spring and early summer about how to implement distance education and working from home. However, access and digital security issues remain. Unfortunately, these issues will not be resolved unless we take in the entire landscape of making the digital connection from students to instructors in a virtual environment. Below are some things to consider.

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Emergency Procurement & Risk Management

What You Should Know about Contact Tracing

What happens when someone tests positive for a dangerously contagious disease? Contact tracing is already a daily task for public health departments and organizations nationwide. Nearly 100 infectious diseases are currently tracked. Now, Covid-19 is forcing a rapid expansion of contact tracing capabilities as agencies seek to monitor its spread.

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Professional Development

Ease Working From Home

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many organizations to figure out how to best adjust their workflows and training programs to meet the changing demands of our current work environment. This means many organizations (NASPO and Procurement U included) are moving to remote work options. While it is important for every organization to do something, the reality is that it can be much more challenging for some organizations to quickly ramp up a work-from-home situation, and training programs are left evaluating their ability to deliver effective training in a virtual environment.
Below are some tips and resources that could help you manage virtual training or remote work options. Read more “Ease Working From Home” →
Technology & IT Procurement

Data Privacy and Security: Where Are We in 2019?

Scary stories of cybersecurity incidents, ransomware attacks, data breaches, and/or data privacy violations have sadly become a part of life now. News reports, such as the recent Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, show how private companies’ lax policies on data sharing and lack of proper auditing leave room for data misuse and abuse. Individuals are entitled to know what information private companies or government organizations have on them and how it is shared and protected. As citizens and consumer advocates are becoming more aware of data privacy and security risks, they are calling upon state and federal government to enact regulations so that living in the digital age doesn’t turn every-day social media users into commodities for companies that are willing to “trade” their personal information to make a profit. Read more “Data Privacy and Security: Where Are We in 2019?” →
Technology & IT Procurement

Blockchain: The Public Sector Big Picture

The private sector has invested more than 1.4 billion dollars in blockchain since 2014. To put this number into context, this is on par with the amount of money spent on internet investments during the early 90’s! What do you know about blockchain? Personally, I knew almost nothing besides the fact it was a technology people were excited about and that it had something to do with Bitcoin. Luckily for me, Procurement U recently released a free course entitled “Blockchain: The Public Sector Big Picture”. This course provided me with a basic understanding of how blockchain works and explains it in a simple, approachable way through videos and interactive graphics.  As someone who is not the most technically savvy, I can say that this course helped me understand blockchain and made me excited about its potential uses. This course goes over how blockchain works and how it can be used in procurement. Take this Procurement U course to start exploring blockchain and its uses in your office!

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