Government Technology - March 2008 - (Page 30)

PHOTO BY ANDREA BOOHER/FEMA In San Diego, in technology now that gives people access to government at whatever time they want to do business with the state,” she said. Marin also used technology to improve state procurement and improve disaster recovery; she led an effort to slash the time it takes California state government to classify potential vendors as small businesses — a process that previously took months. “We went from months, to weeks to days to hours,” Marin said. “Now, it takes 15 to 20 minutes to go through the process online.” As a result, 27.6 percent of state contracts came from small businesses in 2007, beating California’s previously unreached goal of 25 percent small business procurement. During the 2007 San Diego fires, Marin’s staff created www.RebuildYourLife.ca.gov, a Web page distributing survival information to victims within 24 hours. “We had about 30 people in one room using their computers, knowledge and experience,” she said. “It was amazing.” Now California, which could lose roughly 40 percent of its public work force to retirelate October 2007, a Northern California ﬁre crew works into the night monitoring the back burn that was set to stop the Poomacha ﬁre from advancing westward. ROSARIOMARIN S E C R E TA R Y, S TAT E A N D C O N S U M E R S E R V I C E S A G E N C Y, C A L I F O R N I A T O P 25 D O E R S D R E A M E R S A N D D R I V E R S For decades, penetrating California government for services was a tedious chore, but the Golden State has made a belated entrance into e-government, and Rosario Marin is leading many of its critical projects. Imagine trying to file a complaint about your employer while at work. Californians frequently took that risk before the State and Consumer Services Agency, of which Marin is secretary, implemented a 24-hour online appointment request tool. Previously citizens could only file complaints over the phone — often in a whisper — on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. “We have the ment in three years, plans to overhaul its hiring processes to make pursuing a state job easier. Currently applicants must wait several months for a hiring window to open before they can even take an exam and be ranked for consideration. “It’s archaic — years behind,” Marin said. “It’s not easy to want to be an employee of the state of California.” Marin is leading an effort to let applicants apply online for state positions, which she hopes will eliminate bureaucracy and accelerate the approval process. “We want the top people that we can attract,” she said. “We want finding a job in the state to be convenient for you instead of being convenient for the people providing the tests or doing the classifications.” ANDY OPSAHL, FEATURES EDITOR D I R E C T O R, D A R PA TONYTETHER The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is part military, part James Bond and part fantasy. DARPA is where the strangest concepts are built and tested. The agency was formerly known as ARPA, the group that created ARPANET — which you know better as the Internet. The agency is also responsible for projects ranging from unmanned supersonic aircraft to tissue regeneration to developing artificial gecko feet, which would allow users to scale walls. The agency’s highest-profile project is the DARPA Grand Challenge, the autonomous robotic vehicle race covered in Government Technology. (See Game On, December 2007.) The man who runs the show at DARPA is Tony Tether, a distinguished engineer, businessman, civil servant and private citizen who has served as the agency’s director since 2001. The DARPA Grand Challenge, which Tether designed to foster innovation in robotics for military applications, represents a culmination of his effort to “team people with autonomous platforms to create a more capable, agile and cost-effective force that also lowers the risk of U.S. casualties.” DARPA has hosted three challenges to date. The first two pitted robotic cars against the elements. The competing vehicles ran an off-road, desert racecourse The Urban Challenge race marked incredible improvement in the capabilities of autonomous vehicles. In the first event, no vehicle managed to go more than eight miles. Only a few years later, a half dozen did, reflecting the positive impact the challenges have had on developments in robotics. “The 2004 event was equivalent to the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, where their airplane didn’t fly very far but showed that flight was possible.” without human assistance. The most recent event, the Urban Challenge, was a new kind of test. The agency swapped rocks and sand for city streets to see how well the robot cars navigate an urban setting without violating traffic laws. The Urban Challenge was a rousing success and the end results surprised everyone, Tether included. Few expected a single vehicle to finish the grueling 60-mile course. In the end, six vehicles saw the finish line. “The 2004 event was equivalent to the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, where their airplane didn’t fly very far but showed that flight was possible,” Tether said. “I believe the significant progress after 2004 was due to the fact that the community now believed that it could be done.” CHAD VANDER VEEN, TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS EDITOR MAR_08 30 http://www.RebuildYourLife.ca.gov http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - March 2008

Government Technology - March 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene Four Questions for... Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers Let's [Not] Get Physical No Data Left Behind Conservation King Community Drug Test Reinventing the System Better Late Than Never Closing the Deal Spectrum Products Personal Computing signal:noise Digital Communities The Expanding Focus of Digital Communities The Digital Imperative Hot Fusion Redefining Municipal Wireless Made in the USA Bridge Detectives The 2008 Agenda

Government Technology - March 2008

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