Cook County issued the following announcement on Sept. 2.
The Center for Digital Government (CDG) named Cook County one of America's Top 10 Digital Counties with a population of more than one million. The 2020 award identifies the best technology practices among U.S. counties.
CDG chooses Top Ten Digital Counties winners from respondents to their Digital Counties Survey, which provides an annual measure of performance and innovation. As with other 2020 winners, Cook County “had made investments in broadband, remote collaboration and digital resident engagement long before COVID-19 tested whether they were up to the challenge,” said CDG.
"We have many departments that have worked very hard in this crisis to serve the public," said Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle. "In the technology area, the Bureau of Technology, or BOT as we call it, had engineers working long hours to provide internet access to temporary shelters outside the hospitals. Service desk staff and field techs issued laptops and secure network connections to thousands of employees. BOT helped thousands of employees move rapidly to working from home in a matter of days."
Among the innovative technology initiatives Cook County brought forward this year were the COVID-19 Dashboard and “Social Vulnerability Index” (SVI) Interactive Map. The COVID-19 Dashboard provides direct access to critical information about coronavirus deaths in the County, and the SVI Map is an interactive way to share information about which communities in Cook County will likely need the most support during a catastrophic event such as a pandemic.
“I’m grateful to be recognized for our efforts to leverage technology to support Cook County’s mission,” said Cook County Chief Information Officer Tom Lynch.
CDG recognized Cook County for other initiatives including the launch of department-level public dashboards to track performance goals with open data, new cybersecurity policies from Cook County’s Information Security Working Group and innovative approaches to technology infrastructure.
Original source can be found here.
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