>> VIVEK KUNDRA: The CTO's role in the District of Columbia is essentially to drive innovation
leveraging technology for over 86 agencies, 38,000 employees and over 600,000 residents.
When I first came on board as a chief technology officer, I walked out of my place, went to
the local coffee shop. And I discovered, sitting in that coffee shop,
that I had more computing power than the average police officer in the District of Columbia,
the average teacher and the average person who is issuing tickets.
>> DEMETRIOS VLASSOPOULOS: In the Washington, D.C., fire department, we have over 2,000,
and we use a lot of network shared resources for our leadership to get the message out.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: We had a demand for collaboration platform.
We were looking for something that was easy to use from the end-user perspective.
And we're also looking for a technology that could be scaled immediately.
And based on those metrics, and just the economic value of being able to roll out a technology
super fast, at a low cost, we decided to go with Google Ops.
>> DELANO SQUIRES: We ensure that technology is being used efficiently, projects are on
schedule and that the taxpayers' money is being put to the best use possible.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: I decided to evaluate and test, what can we do using consumer technologies
in the public space.
>> DELANO SQUIRES: We use Google Apps as a collaboration tool.
We find it's much better than using static spreadsheets and word docs.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: You just turn on the solution, and it's very easy for end-users to understand
to it, to use, to implement it, deploy it.
>> DEMETRIOS VLASSOPOULOS: I'm using this technology to create a website.
I've already done it. And I'm posting information on it, and I'm
getting it out there. And I'm updating it.
And I'm putting powerpoints on there. It's so simple to do.
Any time we have report of a fire in anywhere in the city, as we're in route, we're glancing
at Google Earth, and determining if the fire hydrants are actually available to us or broken
and not available.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: We decided to use Google Earth, coupled with G.I.S in terms of G.P.S
data, to track how are technicians were performing, so in a real time fashion, we could see where
they were, what was taking long, what wasn't taking long.
And so we could redeploy them based on where the emergencies were.
>> DEMETRIOS VLASSOPOULOS: Google Earth allowed us to look at the segment of the city that
was hit hard and determine where our community residence facilities were, where our dialysis
centers were, any critical infrastructure. Then we proceeded to notify the incident commander
of those facilities, and we called those facilities because the phone numbers to the contacts
for all those facilities were right in Google Earth.
>> DELANO SQUIRES: Google Apps definitely allow my team to be more collaborative with
our colleagues. It allows us to share information across the
agency, especially when we need to do reporting that we have to give to the city administrator
or some other agency that we report to.
>> DEMETRIOS VLASSOPOULOS: Interestingly, though, we have Google Earth in our mobile
command vehicles, so we don't have to be tied to a brick and mortar facility to have the
application.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: We have videos that we've restricted only to the intranet.
These videos are training videos that are restricted to, such as H.R.
practices for human resources or public safety for the fire department.
>> DEMETRIOS VLASSOPOULOS: So it's secure if you want it to be secure, or it's open
if you want to share it with the world.
>> DELANO SQUIRES: I think if I didn't have Google Apps, it probably would make my work
day a lot longer.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: We're investing in technologies that will fundamentally change the way this
government operates.
[pause]
We're ensuring that we provide the services so that the residents have access to these
technologies to make their lives easier, and the ability to interact with government smoother.
>> DEMETRIOS VLASSOPOULOS: We have documentation that we want to get out there to all our fire
and E.M.S. providers, when they're at home or when they're not at home.
And if they're at home and they don't have V.P.N. access, now we know that we have a
secure place where we can post these documents and it's all within the District of Columbia
domain. So it's all good.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: We've seen better bids, in terms of response to our R.F.B.'s, and we've
increased transparency in terms of government operations.
>> DELANO SQUIRES: I believe that reduction in costs directly benefits the taxpayers,
saves them money as well.
>> VIVEK KUNDRA: The cloud computing model allows you to provide service, rather than
technology. It allows us to create a government that's
more transparent, so that government is not practiced behind closed doors, but it's practiced
in the public square.