City Recognized For Digital And Innovation Excellence

The Center for Digital Government today recognized Louisville Metro as a leader in digital and innovation efforts.

The city’s website, louisvilleky.gov, placed second among cities for the Center’s new Government Experience Award. The Center also gave an Innovation Award to the city’s Office for Civic Innovation for its partnership with the app IFTTT.

“A city should be a platform that gives citizens of every neighborhood and ZIP code the opportunity to reach their full human potential.  Our many digital and innovation efforts reflect this value, whether it means digital tools for getting jobs done or innovation work that leads to better service and a more inclusive community,” Mayor Greg Fischer said. “My thanks go to our Information Technology team, our Office for Civic Innovation, and the many community partners who make positive things happen every day.”

The national awards are given for work that offers citizens more integrated, anticipatory and personalized electronic services.

“Citizen expectations are increasingly being reshaped by their experiences with consumer technologies. The website is no longer the only experience they use – it’s now one of many channels in their overall experience,” said Dustin Haisler, Chief Innovation Officer for the Center for Digital Government. “The Government Experience Awards were developed to recognize government agencies that are focusing on designing and delivering services across the overall experience and not necessarily just one channel.”

Offering more services online and offering citizens improved interaction and transparency are among Mayor Fischer’s strategic goals.

In February, Louisville Metro became the first city government to partner with IFTTT, a web and mobile platform that allows users to transform how they experience and manage their homes and habits through tools such as Twitter, Google Drive, and Amazon Echo.

Louisvilleky.gov
The city’s web portal is the digital front door to city government.  It offers easy to find online services, news and events in useful ways, no matter what device the user is on.  The site makes it easy for users to look up services by address, including their junk set-out dates and street sweeping dates, and sign up for notifications by email or text.  There are many ways to pay for services online as well.  Some of the most popular services include:

• MyLouisville: https://louisvilleky.gov/city-services/mylouisville
• City Services: https://louisvilleky.gov/city-services/services
• City Forms: https://louisvilleky.gov/city-services/forms
• Open Data Portal: https://data.louisvilleky.gov/
• City Events Calendar: https://louisvilleky.gov/events
• City News: https://louisvilleky.gov/news
• Online Maps: https://louisvilleky.gov/city-services/maps
• Report an issue: https://louisvilleky.gov/city-services/report
• Map Crime: https://louisvilleky.gov/government/police/services/crime-maps
• Customer Service Search Portal: https://portal.louisvilleky.gov/codesandregs/mainsearch
• Get a Permit: https://louisvilleky.gov/government/get-permit
• Get a License: https://louisvilleky.gov/government/get-license

Innovation Award: IFTTT
Louisville’s Office for Civic Innovation, in the city’s Office for Performance Improvement & Innovation, picked up a national award for their work using IFTTT (If This Then That).  Louisville was the city in America to join the platform.  IFTTT is a useful technology that is allowing Louisville Metro Government to create an entirely new experience for citizens to interact with their government.

By exposing various data services for air quality, emergency notifications, or Louisville news & events to IFTTT, and providing pre-built applets to our citizens, Louisville Metro is connecting these various smart city information sources to devices or services in our citizen’s homes. These applets can be broken apart into their base components, triggers, and mixed and matched with any other service or device they would like. For examples, the City has a pre-configured applet that connects air quality sensors, to a Philips Hue light bulb.  When the air quality is poor, the bulb changes colors according to federal AQI color coding standards. A citizen could take this applet and re-mix it. So instead of changing the light color, it could turn on their HVAC filtering system, or send them a text notification. “According to Grace Simrall, the city’s Chief of Innovation, “The IFTTT platform enables us to provide a cohesive experience to our citizens, but empowers them to mix and match city technology however they wish.”