NEW YORK— New York City bested Philadelphia and Chicago to win City of the Year in the 2011 GovFresh Awards, which honor tech innovations that empower the relationships among citizens, local government, and cities.
“As a city, New York came at civic innovation from both sides,” said GovFresh founder Luke Fretwell. “There was high citizen engagement through app contests, as well as helping redesign the New York website with the Reinvent NYC.”
The city has a comprehensive approach to using technology to better engage citizens, according to Fretwell.
Notable technology advances for the city in 2011 include creating an open data website, which compiles information like where Wi-Fi spots are in the city into easy-to-read graphs and maps, and a digital road map Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne laid out in May, which focused on, among other things, improving government functions with social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
The Best Use of Social Media award was also won by NYC.
Sterne’s appointment as the city’s first chief digital officer was “unprecedented,” noted Fretwell, who didn’t think there was any other city with such a position.
Expanding Wi-Fi across the five boroughs to give everyone access to the Internet, and ramping up the Twitter presence—creating @nycgov to give citizens real-time updates on city news and services, and prevalent tweeting by government officials like Sterne, Bloomberg, and Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation— are parts of the city’s comprehensive digital strategy.
Between NYC.gov (2.8 million) and social media (1.2 million), the digital city government already serves 4 million people a month, according to Sterne’s May report.
The awards provide examples for other governments and show positive efforts.
“Oftentimes everybody complains about government, but no one highlights what government is doing right,” said Fretwell. “It’s an opportunity to say ‘Here’s what’s being done’ and celebrate the great work, because frankly it doesn’t happen that often.”
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