Tag Archives: IoT

Mapping out Geospatial Uses

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Geospatial, as a strict term, means data that is related to a location. In the government space, Geospatial has been used interchangeably with GIS - or Geographic Information Systems - which refers to technology that uses geospatial data. GIS has long been a key technology for the military and intelligence communities to help map out and gain visibility into areas for combat or missions. But as the availability of geographic data grows through the use of GPS applications, drones, and IoT technologies, the use of GIS is expanding across government.

GIS is a key tool in disaster response helping overlay available resources and assets onto maps of areas impacted by floods or fires. It can also be used to map in real time the location of hazards such as downed power lines.

GIS is also being used by law enforcement. In one case, a boy had gone missing, suspected to be abducted. The boy posted a photo to Instagram and the image, taken from what seemed to be an apartment window, included a sign on a bank across the street. An analyst looked up branch locations and cross-referenced the addresses with online maps, but could not get a location that seemed to be a possible match. When they took that data and loaded it into a GIS system that took a top-down look at locations they were able to pinpoint the location of the child.

Urban sprawl and growth is also being managed with GIS. The city of Durham, NC uses aerial imagery to get a better look at changes being done to properties that impact land use, water runoff, and drainage.

There are several upcoming events focused on GIS as well as others that include discussion of the application of geospatial technology. Continue reading →

Department Spotlight: Department of Homeland Security

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may be the newest cabinet-level department, but it is still facing the same modernization challenges felt across government. The agencies pulled under the DHS umbrella in 2002 came with legacy systems. While a good deal of integration and modernization happened while DHS was being formed, systems have to keep evolving to keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape and the technologies used to threaten the homeland.

Cybersecurity, as it relates to the protection of the national infrastructure and government systems, is a huge focus for DHS. In fact, The DHS Secretary recently said that nation-state adversaries "are at the highest levels since the Cold War, largely but not exclusively due to leveraging cyber to conduct espionage and influence operations and disrupt services." As part of their efforts to strengthen their cybersecurity posture, the Department is leading the Continuous Diagnostic Monitoring (CDM) efforts across government to provide capabilities and tools to identify cybersecurity risks on an ongoing basis, prioritize these risks based on potential impacts, and enable cybersecurity personnel to mitigate the most significant problems first.

With a broad mandate to support election security, DHS has been collaborating across the government to ensure the security of machines and records for national elections. New technologies such as Albert sensors, technology designed to detect suspicious IP addresses and malware signatures, will be in place in 90% or more of voting machines used in November. Continue reading →

Putting the IT in Your Next Doctor VisIT

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National Health IT Week was designed to raise awareness of the role IT plays in healthcare and to move forward the use of IT solutions that make a difference in the quality of patient care. The field of Health IT has evolved greatly from using technology to help with administrative functions and patient records. Today, Health IT is at the bedside with telemedicine consults, IoT medical devices, patient education, and more. Additionally, the health market is looking to emerging technologies like blockchain to help with chain of custody of records and controlled substances. IT is also playing a huge role in public health by using data analytics to spot patterns and trends in everything from flu outbreaks to opioid abuse.

With all of these opportunities for IT to become part of the delivery of healthcare there are of course huge security concerns. Publicity around breeches and ransomware incidents have put the industry on high alert to be proactive in their security and responsive to public concern about the security of private health data. Continue reading →

Innovation is Local

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Local governments are quickly becoming home to some of the most innovative applications of big data, analytics, machine learning, IoT, and artificial intelligence. This embrace of new technology is borne out of necessity. Local governments have had to get creative to meet the needs of citizens, demanding a more digital government, while dealing with tight budgets. Cities have introduced apps that allow citizens to report potholes, they have installed "smart" lighting to conserve energy, government organizations have opened up data to allow people to apply for permits online and see the status of their case, and so much more. Additionally, local governments are taking a new look at how to better use and correlate all of the data they hold to enhance city and public health planning.

In the midst of these exciting applications of new technologies, there are challenges. Privacy is a huge concern, both from a data perspective as well as images and information captured from IoT devices across a city. There's also a communication and publicity challenge. Citizen-centric apps and services do no good if people don't know they exist or don't use them. Similarly, there is a learning curve for employees and citizens, and developing the right training to encourage new technology use is critical. Continue reading →

In the Event of an Emergency: Ensuring Government is Disaster-Ready

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With a rash of recent natural disasters, weird weather patterns, and a few months of Hurricane season to go, we wanted to look at disaster recovery practices - beyond the basics. We all know it is critical to have backups for your backups, but sometimes that's not even enough.

Last year, when the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, they lost a lot of government data. Although they had backups of their data stored in different locations, all of these locations were on the island. In Puerto Rico, first responders were trying to make a map of shelter locations, hospitals and flood zones. They started with a spreadsheet containing information on 450 shelters and had to correlate that information with other datasets. Once the data was merged, they found they only had complete data for 88 of the 450 shelters. Only half of those 88 shelters could be mapped using Google, leaving the team with an incomplete picture and a lot of manual work to identify and publicize shelter locations. Continue reading →