The Center for Digital Government (CDG) has named the city of Phoenix a 2021 Digital Cities Survey Winner for the ‘500,000 or More Population Category’. The 21st annual Digital Cities Survey examines the overall technology programs and plans of the city. It focuses on cybersecurity, digitization of services, data transparency, and community engagement.
“Innovative cities are able to leverage data and harness new technology to enhance the services they provide,” said CDG Vice President Phil Bertolini. “The Center for Digital Government congratulates this year’s winners for putting technology to good use toward improving the lives of constituents and strengthening the relationships they have with their partners.”
Over the last year, Phoenix continued to innovate and introduce offerings to city staff and residents as they navigated the pandemic. Most recently, it launched a new service through an app called ‘MyPHX311’ that allows residents to pay their city services bill, report quality-of-life issues, and request city services. Likewise, in partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), Phoenix also developed a virtual assistant chatbot prototype for its website, phoenix.gov, which supports English and Spanish queries as well as providing voice assistance for the visually impaired.
“There are so many exciting and necessary technological advances being made across the city during a time when we need the services more than ever. It really speaks to the fact that we continue to be recognized as a Digital Cities Survey Winner,” Phoenix Chief Information Officer Steen Hambric said. “I look forward to furthering our mission of delivering secure, responsible, sustainable, and flexible IT services, solutions, and governance in 2022.”
Phoenix was also awarded the “What Works City (WWC) – 2021 Gold Certification” earlier this year achieving the national standard of excellence for well-managed, data-driven local government for its effort in becoming a data-centric-driven city. Its use of Open Data provides government transparency in the digital age ranging from Covid-related data sets to funding invested in the community and city operations.
