Montgomery County Recognized with Five 2019 Technology Solutions Awards and Again Stands Out Nationally for Being ‘Tech Savvy’

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Montgomery County has been recognized with five 2019 Technology Solutions Awards from the Public Technology Institute (PTI). Three County programs developed by the Department of Technology Services (DTS) were named “Winners” in their respective award categories and two programs were presented with awards of “Significant Achievement.”

Montgomery was the only county in Maryland to be honored as a “Tech Savvy” jurisdiction. Only one other county in the U.S. received that distinction in 2019. This is the fourth consecutive year that Montgomery has earned the Tech Savvy recognition.

Over the past two years, Montgomery County has been awarded a total of 11 Technology Solutions Awards (six Winners and five Significant Achievements).

PTI, which was established in 1971, works with a core network of leading local officials to identify research opportunities and recognize member achievements.

Technology Solutions Awards were presented this year to the following Montgomery County programs:

• WINNER: Customized Reporting Tool for the Vision Zero Web Map (Category: Geospatial Information Systems). Vision Zero is a nationwide effort that aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and related severe injuries. Montgomery County’s plan seeks to eliminate severe and fatal traffic collisions on County roads by 2030. In support of this effort, the DTS created a Vision Zero map application that allows residents to inform decision makers about issues on roads that they consider dangerous. Appropriate actions can then be taken by the County Department of Transportation. The map can be found at https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/visionzero/
• WINNER: dataMontgomery Online Resident Guide: Encouraging Community Use of Open Data (Category: Web Services, E-Government and Mobile Apps). The County has published more than 300 public datasets on its Open Data portal dataMontgomery, which can be found at https://data.montgomerycountymd.gov/. The dataMontgomery Online Resident Guide was created to facilitate the ability of residents to use open data. The guide can be viewed at https://reports.data.montgomerycountymd.gov/stories/s/434k-bf25.
• WINNER: Implementation of a New 911 Emergency Communication System (Category: Public Safety and Emergency Management, Community Resiliency). DTS, in conjunction with the County’s public safety agencies, led implementation of the Emergency 911 Communications System. The Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system is the decision support scaffolding for the dispatch process. It quickly turns individual data points into a format that reduces the information processing needs of call takers and dispatchers.
• SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENT: Power BI Security Dashboard (Category: Cybersecurity): DTS implemented a Business Intelligence (BI) solution to enhance security awareness across all County departments. The system allows departments to more quickly respond to critical system vulnerabilities and to more efficiently address and resolve the high severity vulnerabilities.
• SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENT: Skype For Business Deployment (Category: Telecommunications and Information Technology). DTS migrated its staff of more than 200 from an on-premise Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone system to Microsoft’s Skype for Business cloud-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Unified Communications (UC) platform. The project enhanced work flexibility, collaboration capabilities and, continuity of operation planning (COOP).

“I am proud of the close collaboration between all of our departments involved in this recognition,” said Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich. “I look forward to developing additional programs like these to help deliver innovative and cost-effective technology solutions that benefit all County residents.”

To learn more about Montgomery County’s Department of Technology Services, go to its website at https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dts/.

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Release ID: 19-266
Media Contact: Neil H. Greenberger 240-777-6532