This is of particular interest to our Microsoft for Government team, where our mission is to help governments solve society’s biggest challenges. With the accelerated pace of innovation surrounding generative AI in the past 18 months, we’ve taken a special interest in understanding the full range of factors that either promote or hinder adoption in government organizations. One concern we invariably hear is about skilling—that is, how to provide the training and support required to help employees not just understand the technology but embrace it. Without this, even the best implementations are at risk of failure.

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How a skilling strategy can advance AI adoption in governments

The growing interest in generative AI has already produced dramatic results in businesses globally, including many noteworthy impacts on governments. Gartner predicts that nearly 25% of governments plan to deploy generative AI solutions by March 2025, with an additional 25% projected the following year.¹ While impressive, this is a bit less than projected global adoption, which is not surprising given that government organizations face an especially high bar in terms of trust, risk, and community expectations.

The promise of generative AI is prompting many governments to complete their cloud migrations and upgrade their data strategies, gradually retiring costly and increasingly inadequate legacy systems. These upgrades will deliver multiple benefits and are essential prerequisites to enabling generative AI innovation.

As it turns out, however, technology alone is not enough. According to a recent IDC study, the number one barrier to implementing and scaling AI is a lack of skilled workers. Nearly 52% of global business leaders named skilling as their top challenge—more than cost (28%), concerns about data or IP loss (28%), or concerns about governance and risk.²

To help fully understand the challenges of skilling that governments face, we commissioned our own research, Public Sector Insights on Skilling. We learned that the obstacles include limited training budgets and a lack of employee time and resources dedicated to learning.

New strategies for upskilling the government workforce for generative AI

Governments who want to be successful with AI should recognize that people are as important as technology in delivering a strong return on investment (ROI). That’s why upskilling is essential, both in terms of funding and employee time.

To help their workforce take advantage of major investments in digital transformation, the Bank of Canada developed an ongoing learning experience platform that provides targeted learning journeys and skills pathways for staff of many specializations. The goal is to free workers from many time-consuming administrative tasks and encourage them to focus on more meaningful work.

Effective practices can be integrated seamlessly into everyday activities, becoming an integral part of the government culture. To help ensure effective upskilling and successful AI adoption, we recommend three important strategies:

1. Make learning an organizational priority

Embracing generative AI is often as much a cultural challenge as a technical one. It starts at the top. Committed, consistent leadership that aligns organizational goals with skilling, and demonstrates learning as a priority, are important factors in creating lasting change. Agencies and organizations need to allocate appropriate resources and understand the gaps in learning, with tactics to fill them. Build a learning culture by allocating time for employee training, identifying opportunities for applying new skills in problem-solving and innovation, and celebrating their success. A long-term mindset is key, as upskilling must be an ongoing employee priority, with opportunities for continuous learning.

2. Build public-private upskilling partnerships

An effective upskilling program is always specific to the government organization. Skilling programs should be developed in the context of their workforces, their local and national requirements, and the unique demands of their agencies and roles. But that doesn’t mean governments need to do it alone. To build a comprehensive approach to embracing AI, you can incorporate upskilling as part of the process from the start. Microsoft, our partners, and other technology providers can help develop skilling strategies. Microsoft offers effective training resources, such as our Public Sector Center for Digital Skills, which offers guidance and resources for public sector organizations in areas such as AI, cloud migration, and cybersecurity.

3. Give people the time to learn

There’s an old Confucian adage that says, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Wise words, which in the context of upskilling mean ensuring employees have adequate opportunity to hone their skills. It’s one thing to promise someone that generative AI will save them time. It’s profoundly more impactful when they click on Copilot and generate a document in a fraction of the time it previously required. Such experiences win people over, but they require time. The global head of an IT workplace, interviewed for a Forrester study, estimated that it took employees between four and eight hours of experimenting with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 before they could use it effectively in their work.³

Empower your government workforce with an effective skilling strategy

We invite you to engage with Microsoft and your local technology partner to develop a skilling strategy as a key part of a holistic approach to AI adoption. For more resources and to learn more about skilling and other training opportunities, please visit:

• Microsoft Learn for government, Microsoft’s flagship resource for technical skilling.
• The AI Skills Initiative, a global resource with free coursework developed in collaboration with LinkedIn.
• AI Explained, a series of virtual community events to educate on generative AI and how it can empower people and organizations (available on-demand in 10 different languages).

Sources:

• ¹ Gartner, “Gartner Predicts Less Than 25% of Government Organizations Will Have Generative AI-Enabled Citizen-Facing Services by 2027”, March 6, 2024.
• ² IDC Infographic, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Opportunity of AI, IDC #US51315823, November 2023.
• ³ A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, “New Technology: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Copilot For Microsoft 365″, April 2024.

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Microsoft was proud to be a global sponsor at this year’s conference, the world’s biggest and most influential event on urban innovation. Over a period of three days, we met with several leaders and representatives, along with people from research and academia, technology companies, media, and more. 

The goal was to explore innovative solutions and strategies needed to transform cities into more sustainable, efficient, and livable spaces—which is essentially what we in Microsoft for Government aim to address from a technology perspective.  

Trends in urban innovation 

The United Nations predicts that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050.¹ It is expected that more new cities will be built in the next 40 years than in all of human history preceding it. The future of humanity is increasingly urban, and the key to solving many of the wide-ranging challenges—from efficiency and sustainability to security and inclusion—lies in technology.  

At this year’s event, there was an overwhelming interest in generative AI, particularly in exploring how to apply the technology to make both near-term and long-term impacts on the programs, operations, and investments of cities of all sizes and geographies. Here are three important trends that we see municipal governments focusing on today:  

1. Data and AI are transforming service delivery and operations.
   The use of AI, specifically generative AI, helps city governments rapidly derive insights from their data in ways that cut through bureaucracy and provide services that people respond to positively. Chatbots and copilots can be game changers in delivering important information, as the City of Kelowna in Canada has demonstrated with the development of new bot capabilities for a 24-hour help line to make it easier for people to access services and understand permitting and regulations. Elsewhere, the Aberdeen City Council in Scotland has built a new platform to collect data and to provide data transparency to its workers, which has improved its average handling time for a single case by 218 minutes and saved more than 2 million pounds annually on data collection. 
2. Sustainability and climate resilience are served by informed decision making and energy efficiency.
   Cities are increasingly challenged by the demands to meet their environmental commitments around carbon emissions, water usage, and waste management. To become more resilient in the face of climate change, AI solutions can help leaders make more informed decisions by helping them get the most out of their vast and wide-ranging stores of data. This can assist in everything from navigating complex regulations, designing carbon-neutral plans, and anticipating the impacts of climate change to build more resilient infrastructure.
   
   One example of this is a digital smart city solution built by the Lillestrøm municipality to remotely monitor hydroelectric utilities. The solution not only helps the municipality provide clean water using fewer resources, but also provides data to predict and provide early warning against flooding.   
3. Technology innovation is better through partnerships.
   In exploring innovation around AI and cloud computing, city governments realize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. No single vendor or solution provider is capable of meeting any government’s needs, which is why it is important to take a broad view of providers and make decisions based on proven quality and capabilities. On one hand, you need solutions that can fully meet the uniquely stringent requirements of trust, scale, and security that government computing demands. On the other, you need a solution provider who understands the landscape of legal, social, and sovereignty considerations which are unique to the municipality.   

Beyond offering an industry-leading cloud and AI platform, Microsoft is differentiated by our robust global partner ecosystem, which is essential to address the myriad of challenges facing cities. Our partners are central to how we meet the needs of cities, and they provide the critical link in enabling public and private partnerships that will deliver successful outcomes in both the near- and long-term. 

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The road ahead for smart cities 

For cities and government agencies looking to take advantage of cloud, data, and AI, the first step is to get your data in order. This means modernizing your environment by migrating to a trusted cloud platform such as Microsoft Azure, and adopting an analytics platform such as Microsoft Fabric that unifies data and readies it for large language models and the AI solutions they can enable. Then, you’ll be able to take full advantage of AI with tools like Copilot for Microsoft 365 and custom innovations built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service.  

Microsoft is excited to partner with cities and other government organizations to chart a path forward to help solve society’s biggest challenges. To learn more about how we can help in your urban innovation journey, visit the Microsoft for Government website, read our Microsoft for Government e-book, or get in touch with your Microsoft sales representative.   

¹ United Nations, World’s population increasingly urban with more than half living in urban areas, July 2014.

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Our customers are already envisioning ways in which generative AI can fundamentally transform government operations and services that touch so many aspects of people’s lives. The potential of AI to make government more efficient and more effective is beyond compelling, and government customers want it now. At the same time, however, they understand that their systems and data currently are not ready to enable them to start innovating with AI, and—making it worse—they aren’t clear on how to begin.

Microsoft is uniquely positioned to help governments begin their AI journey. We are an AI leader with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Bing Chat. More recently, there are announcements of AI-powered copilots for use across our entire platform of solutions, including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Security.  

In a recent post, Diana Parker, Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Sector (WWPS) Government Industry Leader, outlined our comprehensive objectives towards governments that include delivering innovation in programs and services; empowering the government workforce; and securing government data and protecting resources. And then there’s the objective that is foundational to them all: transforming government operations and services. For many of our customers, this is where the journey begins.  

If you want AI, get cloud ready

Governments face some of the most vexing and unique challenges of any industry sector. Governments must deliver services to their constituents (who expect more from technology every day), while their budgets only grow tighter. Any advances in IT must be certifiably compliant with laws and regulations, often optimized for sustainability—and they cannot interrupt business continuity. 

For years, moving to the cloud has been a difficult challenge for governments. Many have chosen to keep their operations on premises for good reasons, from financial considerations to staffing limitations or concerns about security and compliance. Now, they find themselves lagging other sectors as they look to embrace new innovations.

The good news is that the promise of digital transformation—specifically, to bring together people, data, and processes to increase efficiency, improve agility, and unlock new value—is supercharged by the arrival of AI. In other words, the first and best step to take on your AI journey is to properly complete your journey to the cloud.

Lessons learned from government customer success

At its core, transforming government operations and services is a back office-focused effort, with the goal of creating a resilient, hyperscale cloud environment that lets you do new and existing activities with less friction, less cost, and stronger compliance and security.  

To see how this looks in real-life terms, here are some of the essential lessons that our government customers have learned through the remarkable successes they’ve had in their transformation projects. These are highlights from just a handful of government customer stories:

• Modernize your core operations. The Municipality of Alkmaar in the Netherlands was using outdated hardware and struggled to scale capacity and meet timelines. Working with Microsoft partner InSpark and leveraging the Azure Migration and Modernization Program, they tapped into Azure Migrate to move 250 virtual machines running on more than 60 on-premises servers to Microsoft Azure in just three months. They saw immediate improvements in management and monitoring, with a 30 percent cost savings. The municipality now pays only for the specific computing resources it uses, and the solution fully complies with local Dutch regulations and the General Data Protection Regulation. 
• Migrate critical workloads. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) wanted to cut rising maintenance costs and service disruptions across its rail and bus systems. So, it instituted a modernization program to retire its aging legacy IT systems and migrate to Azure. Working with partner Presidio, WMATA migrated 11 critical applications to Azure in just six months. Beyond a range of improvements and a new cultural embracing of technological innovation, the modernization now positions WMATA to explore the capabilities that AI can bring, from machine learning for data analytics to building digital twins of their trains and buses for better performance. 
• Use hybrid cloud where it makes sense. As part of Taiwan’s Smart City initiative, Taoyuan city built the country’s first government hybrid cloud platform. Working with HwaCom Systems Inc., the city built a solution to pull together more than 200 IT projects and a patchwork of disparate data sources. With Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance and together with Synapse and Microsoft Power BI, the city was able to deliver improved services to its citizens and unlock the power of data. In one example, the Environmental Protection Bureau is using the Internet of Things (IoT) data from the water authority to enable onsite inspectors to track high-risk sewage sources, faster and more efficiently. 
• Lift and shift with ease. The United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) built a platform as a service (PaaS) solution called “drone and model aircraft registration and education service” (DMARES) to manage the registration and education of the country’s approximately 500,000 drone lovers. When word came that the government was going to decommission the platform, CAA took quick action. They chose to migrate to Azure, and in so doing innovated a templated approach that can be followed by other organizations. Deemed “perfect” by product managers, the project simplified the CAA’s operations, lowered costs, and opened the door to develop a future version of the solution to utilize more cloud-native technologies and approaches. 
• Consolidate your data. The Orange County Superior Court (OCSC) broke with more than 100 years of tradition by unifying its three disparate case management systems into a singular data warehouse. Until the change, OCSC managed its case files manually, accumulating more than 70 million critical documents that required physical storage and transport. With its unified solution, OCSC can generate Power BI dashboards and apply analytics to better understand and manage its resources. After the start of COVID-19, the change enabled them to quickly shift to virtual options like remote hearings and online dispute resolution to maintain their commitment to due process. 

Learn more and get moving

These examples merely scratch the surface of what’s possible in transforming government operations and services. Every government has its own unique requirements and needs. Microsoft is deeply vested in your success, and we’re committed to partnering long-term to make transformation happen for your agencies. 

To learn more about our offerings, visit our website or get in touch with your Microsoft sales representative. Also, check out these resources: Understanding Digital Transformation in Government and Cutting Edge Technologies to Improve Government Performance and Service. And watch the industry government blog in the coming months for more blog posts from leaders across the Microsoft for Government team who will share insights, updates, and stories of government transformation. 

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The post How governments can transform operations and services in the era of AI appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

How technology can rebuild bridges between communities and law enforcement

Amidst the calls for police reform and the confusion and stress brought on by the pandemic, there is a common thread: scarcity of information, which drives mistrust. So what can we do to unite public servants and the communities they serve? Leverage innovative technology to bring clarity through communication, open data, analytics, insights, and action.

Earlier this year, our partner, Veritone, commissioned a national survey which included a wide-ranging set of questions regarding transparency and the use of technology by our country’s law enforcement agencies. These findings were recently published in an insightful report. One of the outcomes of this report was that perceptions of police have been damaged by a lack of transparency. The public often goes to the law enforcement agencies to find information only to learn that it is a complex process to access.

There are many organizations trying to bridge the gap between communities and local law enforcement, such as Movement Forward and the Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE) project. We’re building on their great work and developing new technologies to not only help departments become more transparent in their reporting but also to provide insights that can help guide the way they approach interactions with their residents and improve relationships. The key to all of this is to ensure that everyone in the community has visibility into the data, as well as an understanding of what it means.

Law enforcement agencies are well-aware of the challenge and are actively trying to find ways to address the public’s concerns. Join us for a webinar that will take this discussion even further. Veritone and Microsoft will host a virtual panel discussion with law enforcement leaders from across the country to discuss the report’s findings, as well as other related topics. Find out what it all means for our nation’s law enforcement agencies and what next steps are suggested. Featured panelists include:

• Former Chief of Police Joel Shults, Colorado.
• Chief of Police Steven Casstevens, Buffalo Grove, IL (past IACP president).
• Chief of Police Jorge Cisneros, Anaheim, CA.
• Former Police Commissioner William Gross, Boston, MA.
• Chief of Police John Letteney, Thomasville, GA (incoming IACP president).

Click here to register today.

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Microsoft webinar explores the digital future of public safety

Creating safer communities is everyone’s goal. But that is more challenging than ever due to COVID-19, and now even those who work to keep us safe are themselves in danger as well.

To meet these challenges, agencies are embracing digital transformation. This shift gives public safety employees the ability to make better-informed decisions, enables secure remote access for those now working from home, and creates opportunities for cross-agency collaboration. The result: trusted and secure services.

To help public safety agencies navigate this new normal, Microsoft is presenting a digital forum called “The Future of Public Safety.” Scheduled for January 19, 2021, at 7:30 AM PT, this forum is a great chance for you to hear from several of your peers on how public safety agencies can see the benefits of digital transformation while minimizing the risks.

I am looking forward to hosting and moderating this event. Public safety is a topic that I devoted my career to, both at the federal level with the U.S. Secret Service and as a municipal police officer here in the United States. Technology has a critical role to play in supporting first responders, emergency call centers, and post-incident investigations.

During this webinar, our panelists will dive into subjects such as:

• How mobile caller location changes the way that emergency centers operate.
• The role multi-language translated texts to and from an emergency dispatcher will play in incident response.
• How COVID-19 has influenced decisions around moving to the cloud.
• The benefits we are seeing from digital transformation in public safety.
• The “new normal” in public safety.
• How Microsoft can better support first responders.
• Community engagement, transparency, and accountability.

Joining me at this forum are some great representatives from the public safety community. They are:

Kirk Lonbom, Director, Public Safety and Justice Strategy, US State and Local Government, Microsoft. Kirk has four decades of experience in state and local government with the majority of his career focused on public safety. Kirk began his career as a police officer, serving in uniform, investigations, undercover and intelligence roles, and leadership. His transition from on the street experience to public safety technologist and strategist includes service as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Illinois State Police, CIO for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, and Illinois’ first statewide Chief Information Security Officer. Kirk retired from government service in 2018 after serving as the CIO and cabinet-level Secretary for the State of Illinois. At Microsoft, Kirk helps to drive national strategy and business development for public safety and justice.

Brent Dyer, Executive Director, Information Technology & Infrastructure, Calgary Police Service. Dyer has invested 25 years into transforming police business through innovative IT solutions. He previously held the position of Director of Information Technology for nine years before securing his current role. A strategic thinker and planner, Dyer leads the IMTD team in the advancement of information technology in a changing and uncertain environment.

Budge Currier, 911 Branch Manager, Public Safety Communications, California Office of Emergency Service. Since 2011, Budge has served with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). In his current role as the 911 Emergency Communications Branch Manager, Budge is responsible for the 911 Network that supports 438 PSAPs with an annual call volume of 27 million 911 calls. He also manages the Emergency Communications Division, which coordinates the deployment of broadband services and the Tactical Communications Unit that provides communications coordination and response statewide.

During this forum, you’ll have a chance to hear from our panelists about how they see technology improving public safety. You’ll also have a chance to ask questions and discuss important topics with people facing the same challenges as you

Register today for this event by visiting our registration page. And check out our Public Safety and Justice home page for the latest information on how Microsoft is empowering agencies, improving operations, and protecting our communities.

The post Public safety benefits from digital transformation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Technology is helping to rapidly change how you empower your law enforcement agency, improve operations, and protect communities. New solutions can help departments to gather, analyze, and share data rapidly to make better decisions faster, as well as help identify officers who might benefit from additional resources and services to support them. To help make better-informed decisions and deliver more impactful actions to increase the safety of people and the security of the communities you serve, law enforcement agencies need to:

• Ensure they can serve their communities while giving personnel the flexibility to work from anywhere and at any time.
• Empower cross-agency collaboration by sharing data, services, and innovation across jurisdictions and community groups.
• Build community trust and engagement by securing information, protecting infrastructure, and ensuring regulatory compliance.

During the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) 2020, Richard Zak, Director of Public Safety and Justice Solutions at Microsoft will host a session on how law enforcement leaders have addressed these critical challenges:

• From the Chicago Police Department, Sabih Khan, Deputy Chief for Strategic Initiatives, and Maggie Goodrich, Consultant at the University of Chicago Crime Lab and former Chief Information Officer at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), will join Zak to discuss the launch of their new Officer Support System. The system was designed specifically to support officer health and wellness, a critical challenge facing law enforcement.
• Also joining the discussion will be Inspector Darren Henstock from the Digital Policing Division of the Western Australia Police Force. Over the past 18 months, the Western Australia Police Force has undergone a digital transformation, moving to secure cloud services and deploying BWC, alongside personally-issued mobile devices complete with a suite of apps and features supporting their Digital Policing Strategy to empower frontline officers and make their communities safer.

Watch the session to learn best practices and the right first steps from these law enforcement and technology leaders.

Learn more about how Microsoft empowers public safety and justice organizations.

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This is a top goal because, according to the FCC, a 1-minute decrease in response time reduces mortality rate from 6 to 5 percent (with a 17 percent drop in the total number of deaths).

So while state-of-the-art equipment and trained personnel are still integral to rapid response, the ability to use new and traditional data sources grows more important every day. The physical assets involved haven’t changed dramatically, but the possible connections between them have. Today, operators at emergency call centers (like 911 or 112) are putting together data from smart devices and other sources to help provide more—and more accurate—situational awareness information to first responders, faster than ever before.

The clock is ticking—for callers and first responders

Citizens’ service expectations have grown at least as fast as public safety IT solutions have. People are used to posting to retail and B2B brands’ social channels and getting a timely response, and to tracking their Uber Eats order as it journeys from the restaurant to their front door. These real-time connections between consumers requesting retail services and those who deliver them are now standard, and public agencies are getting on board too.

For example, until recently, if an emergency call center operator didn’t speak the same language as the person requesting help, adding a translation service to the conversation could take several minutes, costing precious time. But by coupling the call taker’s devices with services like Nimbus cloud aided dispatch (CAD) from Microsoft partner RapidDeploy, operators and first responders can get real-time translation on their mobile devices. The RapidDeploy service uses Microsoft Azure services to automatically translate multiple languages, even within the same conversation.

Likewise, companies like Microsoft partners RapidSOS and Capita are addressing the difficulty of getting a caller’s exact location. With no app required, Capita’s 911Eye, 112Eye, and 999Eye services enable callers with smartphones to stream live footage from their phone’s camera into an emergency service control room. These services also provide the caller’s location by way of GPS coordinates, which is faster and more accurate than traditional cellular tower triangulation. There are many other related services that incorporate data from a variety of sources, like the OnStar in-vehicle driver’s assistance program. OnStar emergency calls can be initiated by humans or automotive systems, with real-time data on things like location and vehicle damage while also enabling voice conversations between emergency call center operators and vehicle occupants.

When sending help, agencies are reducing response times with GPS services like Azure-based Esri’s smart Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping software. Instead of relying on map books or familiarity with a neighborhood, operators and first responders can gather, analyze, and share up-to-the-minute information on congestion and road closures, supplemented with views from traffic and police car cameras. Now that first responders can find the fastest routes to emergency scenes with minimal effort, they are freed up to concentrate on situational awareness information, like weather or social media data.

The future is within reach

On the horizon are smart-city technologies that coordinate traffic signals and use social media outputs to warn citizens away from emergency sites, to reduce chaos and keep people safer.

Public agencies’ need for updated IT solutions, like cyber resilience and disaster recovery, has grown, but their budgets haven’t. Thankfully, it’s possible to use cloud services to add intelligence to existing capital expenditure IT investments, adding analytics and data ingestion capabilities without adding hardware. Over time, agencies can replace legacy systems with natively modern cloud-based technologies. Microsoft invests $1 billion annually in Azure to help fortify customers’ environments against threats.

With advances in technology and service expectations happening faster and faster, this is a great time to start looking into the latest intelligent solutions. Download The future of public safety and justice e-book to explore a variety of future-proof, data-driven solutions designed for public safety and justice agencies.

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This year at Smart City Expo World Congress 2018, Microsoft will join global leaders to share innovative solutions focused on the digital transformation of cities. This blog is the fourth in a series about how Microsoft provides the intelligent services and trusted platform for partner solutions that empower cities to be more secure, prosperous, and sustainable. Join Microsoft and its partners at SCEWC 2018.

As a growing percentage of the global population gravitates toward urban areas, city leaders face pressure not only to accommodate their needs in terms of mobility, infrastructure, and social care, but also in terms of public safety. These pressures run head-on with the challenge of increasingly constrained resources. In the U.S. alone, more than $100 billion is spent every year on public safety while in the European Union, expenditure on public order and safety averages 1.7% of GDP.

Imagine a world where civic systems are infused with intelligent, safe, and secure cloud technology that enables public safety teams to be better informed and collaborate before, during, and after incidents. In this digitally connected world, public safety teams have the tools needed to:

1. Identify crime trends and work with the community and public safety teams to resolve.
2. Improve situational awareness and collapse incident response times equipping first responders with details on similar previous emergencies that inform better judgments, save more lives, and ensure situations return to normal as soon as possible.
3. Leverage better access to information to improve inter-agency coordination and collaboration.
4. Bring together structured and unstructured data in a secure and compliant manner to compile evidence and reconstruct events much faster.

At Microsoft, we’re dedicated to developing the technologies needed to turn these possibilities into reality.

Microsoft technologies are making it possible to turn this vision into a reality

Microsoft’s secure, trusted cloud and intelligent services support the digital transformation of cities focusing on public safety, helping them protect citizen data against unauthorized access, detect cyberattacks and breaches, and respond and adapt to prevent future incidents.

Highly integrated data systems connect the dots between historical information, geo-spatial mapping, connected devices, and more to drive efficient, targeted responses and keep first responders safe. Fire and Emergency New Zealand has upgraded and integrated their platform capabilities across all their fire trucks to improve connectivity and response times. Now they are looking to implement IoT-based technology to connect devices fitted to firefighters’ helmets or boots to monitor vital information such as the quantity of air in their tanks, skin temperature, and GPS locators to track movement.

Cloud-based analytics provide the mobility and scalability needed by public safety agencies to be better informed and collaborate before, during and after incidents. Infusing cloud-based technologies with intelligence further enables public safety teams to gain insight from deep repositories of information putting data to new, productive use. San Diego County Sheriff’s Department utilizes an AI-enabled conversation mobile app, Coptivity, that helps first responders get the information they need faster and improves their situational awareness. Instead of calling dispatch and waiting to get the results of first-level queries such as a license plate check, responders can use Coptivity to provide a response in real-time.

Our partners play a pivotal role in working toward this vision of connected, secure cities. For example, Innodep, a South Korea-based provider of IoT-enabled security solutions, leverages Microsoft Cloud technology to empower municipalities to better protect citizens. To ensure the safety of intellectual property (IP), sensitive data, and employees, Innodep’s cloud-based video solution grants only authorized personnel access to secure facilities. Genetec is also utilizing the speed and flexibility of Microsoft Cloud technology to deliver unified security, public safety, operations, investigative and intelligence solutions designed to protect both citizens and law enforcement.

Connect with us at SCEWC 2018 to learn more about how you can transform public safety
Microsoft provides the trusted cloud platform and intelligent services needed to build more secure, vibrant cities.
To learn more about how Microsoft is empowering public safety teams.

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Quickly harness video content to meet policing, incident response, and judicial needs

With cloud computing, you can have elastic capabilities to accommodate spikes in demand for video content—such as live video at the time of an incident. You can process more video data faster with the high-performance computing power of the cloud. And you can gain insights in near real-time using advanced cloud analytics for facial recognition, speech or text search, identifying characteristics of suspects, and more. That can help you improve policing, investigations, and evidence for criminal court cases.

With cloud services, you can also enable better situational and operational awareness by sharing video and insights across first responders, agencies, and command centers—with enhanced security and compliance. That way, incident responses can be orchestrated in an efficient, cohesive manner to help improve public safety.

Provide more transparency and accountability in policing

You can meet citizens’ demands for transparency and accountability in policing more thoroughly and efficiently with cloud capabilities. For example, you can capture digital video from virtually any source to which your agency has consensual and legal access—not just cameras you own—to help you provide a holistic account of an incident. We partner with leading video capture companies in the industry—from body-worn cameras and vehicle video systems to drones and robots to fixed and pan-tilt-zoom cameras such as security or traffic cams—so you can capture video with more devices.

And with the cloud, you can automate redaction of video so you can quickly share video with the public, while protecting people’s privacy.

Manage the growing volume of video data cost-effectively

Reduce on-premises data center infrastructure sprawl—and corresponding capital expenditures—by using the cloud for secure and compliant video storage, analytics, and retrieval. Flexible cloud-based options can help you scale as needed for rapidly increasing data from video sources in law enforcement (such as dash cams, body-worn cameras, UAV, and ground-based robot video), as well as other video sources to which you have consensual and legal access, such as government-owned cameras (like CCTV, surveillance, and traffic cameras) and businesses’ security cameras.

Our cloud and hybrid solutions can interoperate with your existing legacy systems. And they can help your agency comply with key standards for information security, such as CJIS, FISMA, ISO, and PCI. What’s more, you can scale and pay as you go for cloud services as an operating expense—rather than a capital expenditure—which can help you get the digital resources you need within budget constraints.

Start transforming your video management now

The above are just a few examples of how you can digitally transform your video management. To learn more, see success stories, and find a partner visit our Video Management solution page.

The post Digitally transform your video management to improve transparency appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Whether it’s a natural disaster or a cyberattack, government agencies need the resiliency to bounce back quickly. So what can you do now to prepare for the worst?

You can start by implementing sound practices in two key areas: geo-redundancy and cybersecurity.

Geo-redundancy

By taking advantage of cloud or hybrid cloud solutions, you can have the flexibility to implement a disaster recovery plan designed specifically for your needs.

Maybe in the near-term you need to keep your primary datacenter on premises. You can still have a back-up datacenter in another region using a hybrid solution. Or, perhaps you’re in the process of migrating all your datacenter services to the cloud, in which case, you’ll want to make sure that you have two geo-redundant datacenters—something we offer with the Microsoft Cloud. If they’re too close together, you risk both being impacted by a natural disaster in your region.

Once you’ve implemented your resilience plan, you’ll want to test it. That way, if you need to make adjustments you can do so and feel confident that if disaster strikes your systems are prepared.

With the cloud, you also have the flexibility to migrate key government service workloads to a datacenter in a safe place when you know a weather event or other natural disaster is coming. This will allow you to stand-up critical citizen services and disaster recovery programs as quickly as possible.

Cybersecurity

When it comes to data resiliency and keeping your government services up and running, cybersecurity is a multi-faceted process that needs to happen day in, day out. Cloud computing, mobile devices, the Internet of Things, and the digitization of information and processes in a hybrid computing environment present new challenges to securing data.

That means the cyberthreat landscape of today requires an ongoing, relentless—and holistic—approach to protecting your data and infrastructure. Many of our government customers are happy to leave it to us to help reduce the burden on them.

Whether it’s through our wide array of compliance certifications and end-to-end security and data protection capabilities, our digital crimes unit, or the more than $1 billion we invest in security research and development each year, we’re constantly working to help government agencies take a holistic approach to protect, detect, and respond to security threats and increasing cybercrime.

Learn more in our cybersecurity blog series.

Together with our vast ecosystem of partners, we’re here to help you proactively plan and prepare for disasters and cyberthreats. That way, your government agency can have the data resiliency you require so your services can be there for your constituents when they need them most.

See how governments around the world are digitally transforming while gaining the resiliency and security they need in the eBook: The Digital Transformation of Government.

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