The Center for Digital Government (CDG) named Allen a winner of the 2021 Digital Cities Survey. The Survey recognizes cities using technology to tackle social challenges, enhance services and strengthen cybersecurity.
Allen ranked seventh in the 75,000-124,999 Population Category for pushing through the challenges of COVID-19 while continuing to innovate and engage with residents.
Read the award writeup for Allen:
In Allen, Texas, technology is at the forefront of the City’s efforts to improve operations and services for residents. For example, police officers use drones in numerous efforts, like identifying suspects that have fled from a crime scene. Tech was also a key enabler of City employees moving to a remote work environment in response to the pandemic, leading IT to deploy laptops, VPN, smartphones and other remote support tools to monitor and prevent cyber attacks.
The City’s fire department is using robotic process automation to make what could be a tedious, manual process much more efficient: entering vaccine data for thousands of citizens into the state's website. The department also used GIS technology to create local dashboards that helped procure a significant amount of PPE, which was then shared with the City’s police department. These accomplishments were achieved against a challenging backdrop, which included budget cuts of up to 10 percent and putting new IT projects, training and travel on hold.
About the Center for Digital Government
Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute focused on technology policy and best practices in state and local government. CDG is a division of e.Republic, the nation’s only media and research company focused exclusively on state and local government and education.