Are you familiar with the Atlas? If not, keep reading! You don’t want to miss out on this amazing resource for local governments.
The Atlas is a free resource for governments to review case studies, follow trending topics, and post questions to crowdsource ideas. It allows city officials to learn from each other about what solutions are working (or not working) in their local communities. It is especially useful when it comes to implementing new technologies to achieve smarter, more sustainable cities that will last.
Local Governments Need Modern Technology Solutions
The Atlas began in 2013 when three former government employees put their minds together to work with city governments. They quickly found major gaps in knowledge, and a lack of any system to effectively share experiences easily and quickly online. There was no single space for local government officials to learn from each other for free.
With a vision of a world with safer, smarter cities, the Atlas helps local governments understand the best ways to implement new technologies, which they increasingly need. We know that digital transformation in local government initiatives is occurring as a response to the demand for single-asset integration across program services. Citizens are tech-savvy, and they expect their local governments to upgrade and provide simple, secure access to services and information.
Challenges To Implementing New Technologies
Of course, whenever local government seeks to implement change, challenges are involved! However, with the right resources and some creativity, they can certainly be overcome.
Lack of resources for adoption and implementation
The most obvious challenge is a lack of resources. Local governments are always strapped for cash! No matter where they are located, there is always going to be more to spend on than there is available.
Most local governments need to adopt new technologies slowly due to the lack of funding for purchasing, implementation, and training. Legacy systems that still function are hard to switch out, especially when most of the team is used to how they work. Unfortunately, organizational change can be painful. Local governments that do embrace change inevitably will experience a little internal pushback.
Limited access to technical experts
The same goes for limited access to experts. Programmers and technology experts are in high demand. They are hard to come by, and if they are good, they are generally very expensive! Local governments may struggle to find the right people to implement new technology initiatives. They will most likely need to be brought in as consultants for a limited time rather than developed in-house due to costs.
Cybersecurity and risk management
Similarly, with the introduction of new technology, local governments also need to consider citizens’ data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity in general. With the Internet of Things increasingly active in how cities operate logistically, a cyberattack could potentially shut down critical infrastructure resulting in major losses (and traffic accidents!).
The problem — and one that challenges CISOs and security professionals alike in the public sector — isn’t a lack of security-relevant data. It’s having the right synchronization of people, processes, and technology necessary to make sense of it all and act upon any findings. Getting this combination right is tricky.
The Atlas Platform as a Potential Solution
The good news is that the Atlas Platform is a potential solution to all of these issues. By allowing local governments to access the platform from anywhere, it makes access to information about vendors, requests for proposals, trends, case studies, and more available to local government employees so they can learn from other municipalities and implement best practices.
The Atlas library has so many resources for local governments to get best practices and case studies on anything from smart cities, resilience, sustainability, public-private partnerships, climate, procurement, technology, and organizational change.
At Rastrac, we’re a big fan of helping local governments harness the power of data to improve decision-making and better serve their citizens. The Atlas Platform is an excellent tool for sharing that data across localities so learning is diffused and best practices are developed through shared experiences.
Learn more about the Atlas Platform for local governments.
If you are in local government leadership and want to work on a case study to share with your colleagues across the country, Rastrac can help. Our GPS asset tracking and monitoring software is revolutionizing how municipalities share important data with their citizens online in real time.
Like what you're reading? Subscribe to our blog.
Get our latest posts straight to your inbox.
Subscribe to Our Blog
