Tag: public sector

In the United States, some communities have very different experiences in their interactions with the justice system. There are policies, programs and practices within the criminal legal system that exacerbate racial inequities and disproportionately impact Black and African American communities.

At Microsoft, through our Justice Reform Initiative, we provide support to organizations using data and technology to develop alternatives to incarceration, accelerate the adoption of new models of public safety and expand access to data driven insights.

Today, Microsoft is partnering with the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI), a national effort led by researchers at Loyola University of Chicago and Florida International University, to expand access to data-driven insights via new, publicly available data dashboards created in partnership with Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver and Colorado district attorneys’ offices. In the spirit of promoting transparency, prosecutors worked together with researchers, and with input from their communities, to create the data dashboards that will enable community members to gain a better understanding of the work going on in their local office, including trends in cases filed and resolved over time, identify patterns in how individuals are treated and evaluate how they are addressing serious crime and protecting and serving victims.

Prosecutors hold significant decision-making power, and the public wants to know what their local prosecutors are doing, especially given the increasing scrutiny on prosecutors and ongoing concerns that disparities in charges and sentencing recommendations are often correlated to race, ethnicity or wealth. However, most district attorneys’ offices are not able to aggregate, review, interpret or share data publicly.

“The move to create prosecutorial data dashboards was sparked by public demand for greater accountability and impartiality, along with a focus on community well-being and fairness,” said Don Stemen, PhD, Loyola University Chicago professor and co-manager of the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI) project. “Increasingly, prosecutors are expected to take proactive, engaged responses to community problems, reduce disparities in justice outcomes, build greater trust through community engagement and increase transparency and accountability. This requires robust data-driven prosecutorial work.”

“Transparency and easy public access to data are two items that can go a long way in nurturing trust and faith between prosecutors and the communities they serve,” said Jeremy Shaver, a spokesperson for Hate Free Colorado, a diverse group of community partners dedicated to countering hate crimes in Colorado. “We appreciate that the participating district attorneys’ offices held meetings with community leaders to learn what they want and expect out of this project. We look forward to how the dashboards may increase awareness on how prosecutorial decisions are made in Colorado.”

The collaboration between prosecutors, researchers and community members was a critical factor in ensuring these dashboards provide relevant and useful information for all stakeholders. Denver District Attorney Beth McCann says, “We are committed to transparency and embrace prevention-oriented approaches to public safety; approaches that are rooted in data and facts. By using our existing data, we can be smart on crime, think about new ways to maximize public safety, ensure fairness and create new systems of accountability to the public.”

Each dashboard also utilizes indicators to assess prosecutorial progress toward three goals: capacity and efficiency; community safety and well-being; and fairness and justice. Robust data is needed to identify and prioritize the possible actions at points of prosecutorial discretion to improve community safety, reduce disparities and ensure prosecutors are treating defendants and victims fairly. These dashboards are now available in eight judicial districts.

• 1st Judicial District (Jefferson, Gilpin)  
• 2nd Judicial District (Denver)  
• 5th Judicial District (Eagle, Summit, Lake, Clear Creek)  
• 6th Judicial District (La Plata, San Juan, Archuleta) 
• 7th Judicial District (Montrose, San Miguel, Ouray, Delta, Hinsdale, Gunnison) 
• 8th Judicial District (Jackson, Larimer)  
• 18th Judicial District (Douglas, Arapahoe, Elbert, Lincoln)  
• 20th Judicial District (Boulder)  

“There is a commitment in Colorado generally, and certainly among the judicial districts, to data-driven decision-making,” said Lauren Gase, PhD, senior researcher and project director for the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab. “The dashboards are a way to take the data from the case management system and make meaning of it, and display it in ways that support transparency and use within each office.”

With support from the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative, these data dashboards were created as part of the pilot phase of the Colorado Prosecutorial Dashboards project. This is the first statewide initiative for the PPI and is a collaborative effort between PPI, the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver and district attorneys’ offices across the state. The project was also supported by data stored and shared by the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council (CDAC). This project, which started with eight judicial districts, will next aim to expand to all judicial districts across Colorado.

I’m proud that Microsoft can contribute to this historic initiative and look forward to seeing how this work continues in the months and years ahead. This work is not easy, but it is necessary to ensure fundamental rights like access to justice are protected and equitable outcomes are guaranteed for all.

Tags: data, data sharing, Law, Microsoft Criminal Justice Reform Initiative, PPI dashboard

Only a few years ago, the idea of justice being carried out in a virtual environment was reserved for special cases or circumstances. It had been discussed as a serious alternative to daily hearings being held in the courtroom and while it demonstrated merit, this was too drastic of a change. 

While navigating our way through COVID-19, courts were forced to dramatically change their well-versed practices to meet the ever-changing landscape. The courtroom has evolved from a pure physical domain to a hybrid of in-person and remote parties. Having an accessible, secure, and single source of truth, available through an integrated technology platform has never been more essential. As technical issues were solved and courtroom participants gained comfort with their new normal, hybrid courtrooms have become widely accepted and the norm and will continue to remain in some form. 

A changing landscape 

The continually evolving court landscape poses new and unique challenges for the judiciary and the public, demanding a great shift in court operations and administration.

• How do we ensure that all parties have fair, impartial, and timely proceedings, regardless of their location?
• How do we seamlessly integrate the various legacy systems across agencies, securely?
• What analytical insights can we arm court administration with to navigate the historical backlog challenges?
• Is this the time to build interoperability in the court system? 

And it is not simply COVID-19 that is driving change. In recent decades, growing case volumes and costs, along with tightening resource constraints, have prompted courts to seek technologies that facilitate more efficient justice administration while reducing costs. That has led to a smaller number of central court hubs. More courtrooms necessarily imply greater travel and logistical costs for courts staff, judges, police and other agencies, and parties. That makes a hybrid approach to justice almost inevitable. 

Microsoft’s extensive partner ecosystem has been a key component to the success and scalability of various judicial industry solutions. Learn more about modernizing court operations and see the solutions offered by our partners. 

Hybrid courtroom

As court hearings become hybrid, it’s important to identify gaps in the hearing experience that technology can bridge. While hybrid court proceedings may seem straightforward, developing an experience that allows courts to simulate a physical case hearing with minimal technology interaction and distraction is key. Quoting a judge, “Invisible technology is the right technology in the courtroom.” Technology within the courtroom is there to assist the proceeding, not hinder it. What does a truly integrated platform look like? Download the LACourtConnect Update to see an example of integrated platforms in a hybrid courtroom providing enhancements to the participants experience for remote appearances, including the ability to chat with other participants, monitor courtroom proceedings before the case is called, and more.

Data analytics

Courts across the globe are inundated with growing case backlogs. Traditional methods of analyzing vast amounts of data are tedious and time-consuming. Courts are looking at how they can put AI to work to maximize the use of data and modernize and automate selected processes. Machine learning systems built on Microsoft Azure provide critical analytics to derive actionable insights and intelligible data. With Azure, court employees can use natural language processing, form recognition, speed-to-text transcription, and translation services to index, search, and analyze text, images, PDFs, and audio or video files.   

How do we utilize AI to empower court operations to make better use of data and process cases more efficiently, to regain control of case backlogs? Learn more by downloading, AI-Ready Government: How Orange County Superior Courts Leveraged Data to Transform Operations.

Next steps

At Microsoft, and with our industry partners, we are building a justice management platform to meet these challenges, creating a single source of truth for all those involved in the justice ecosystem backed by the integrity and security Microsoft builds into all our products. Join us as we explore accelerating digital justice transformation in this upcoming blog series. 

Stay up to date on Microsoft’s global approach to public safety and justice by visiting the Microsoft for Public Safety and Justice website. 

Throughout my life, I’ve traveled to many places for work, pleasure, and education. Often with family, sometimes alone. Whether I am in Barcelona or Buenos Aires, Austin or Cleveland, Doha or Tel-Aviv, or closer to home exploring Manhattan, I’m always struck by the variation in the built environment.

Of course, cities look different based on when they were built, along with the cultural and architectural differences they reflect. There’s no mistaking Rome for Tokyo, for instance.

And yet, all over the world, the people who govern these cities have the same challenge: how to better serve residents and visitors. Whether it’s improving quality of life, the future of work, accessibility, or sustainability, city leaders and planners are thinking deeply about what the future holds and how to best prepare.

I wrote earlier in the year that we cannot miss the current chance to rebuild our infrastructure for accessibility. The same imperative applies to the buildings where we live, work, learn, and play.

Above all, our buildings don’t exist in isolation. I use the term “built environment” as a catchall to describe the various structures that distinguish cities from the natural environment. Looking ahead, the biggest benefits will be realized when buildings operate as a seamless part of the larger system of infrastructure.

Better accessible experiences

For anyone working in or visiting a place, the behind-the-scenes operations should remain invisible. What matters is the experience: how easy and accessible it is getting in and out of a space or building, how comfortable it is to accomplish work, and how seamless it is to visit. Reducing barriers and enabling a positive experience is what people want, and technology gives us much better ways of doing that.

But how does that happen? Let’s take a fun example—going to a sporting event. What makes it work?

• An arena, like Madison Square Garden in New York, that’s connected to several major transit systems so people can use the mode of transportation that best fits their needs.
• Ticketing that is easy to scan and keeps people moving through lines quickly. This is better for fans and workers.
• A fully accessible space that helps everyone get to where they are going, easily and comfortably.
• Contactless payment to keep concessions lines fast and short.
• Strong connectivity that lets thousands of people use their devices.

Boosting operations with data

Heathrow airport is using data-driven insights to improve airport passenger flow, which helps deliver greater efficiency and cost savings for the airport and its carriers through more streamlined turnaround times for planes. This directly and positively impacts both the passengers and the staff working at the airport.

Daily operations—from security to air conditioning to lighting—come at a considerable cost. The fastest way to efficiency and cost reduction is by using data to make rapid, informed decisions. This is particularly important for older buildings that were not made for today’s technology and construction standards. As a result, the first rule for improving operations is that any changes or upgrades must apply to prioritized use cases. 

Creating a safer workplace

Our buildings also have a major impact on the way people work. For example, the physical workspace has an influence on employees’ ability to collaborate—it needs to accommodate employees’ needs throughout the day, and it needs to be intentional in facilitating movements in, out of, or around the space.

Government adoption of remote and hybrid work has varied widely since the start of COVID-19. But as governments invest in new buildings, it only makes sense to design them for safer working conditions—whether for hybrid or in-person workforces. It’s not only about productivity but also about creating a better employee experience. 

For example, Italy’s National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work launched a new badge system to solve building access issues. This resulted in a streamlined process for visitor access while ensuring that employees could easily move around the workplace. The new badge system made it easy to enable limited access to its physical spaces and data center only to authorized personnel.

Building sustainably  

Whether it’s a new building or the renovation of an old one, construction projects are a major opportunity to ensure focus on sustainability as a strategic priority. Energy efficiency across operations is a high priority in helping organizations achieve their sustainability goals while reducing costs of lighting and running heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The automation of these systems to respond when buildings, floors, or even individual rooms are occupied can result in significant efficiencies. 

In a great example of how this works, MacDonald-Miller Facility Solutions helps customers build energy-efficient buildings and keep them operating at peak efficiency. MacDonald-Miller has gone all in with the Microsoft Cloud to design cutting-edge smart-building systems that save customers money.

But sustainability isn’t only about energy or carbon emissions. Technology can also help during construction to ensure building placement has a minimal environmental impact, enables more sustainable water use practices, and minimizes waste.

As we implement these solutions at scale, people will benefit from government and other publicly owned spaces and buildings—such as parks, arenas, or stadiums—to help them get the most out of their experience. Better operations help governments save money, and a focus on sustainability will ensure these spaces contribute to a healthier, cleaner future.

Transforming the built environment

By making bold investments in solutions that deliver on efficiency, safety, and sustainability goals, governments can make an outsized impact because of their vast real estate holdings. They also are major employers, and employees stand to realize significant benefits when improvements are made to government buildings. Our buildings were created to serve the public—and now we have the opportunity to make informed choices that will transform our built environment for the better.

Stay up to date on Microsoft’s global approach to government infrastructure by visiting the Microsoft for Critical Infrastructure website.

The power and utilities sector plays a critical role in building a sustainable energy future while providing safe, reliable, affordable, clean energy to homes and businesses. As a technology innovator and partner of the industry, the Microsoft Energy team looks forward to participating in DISTRIBUTECH International in Dallas, Texas, from May 23 to 25, 2022, the leading annual energy transmission and distribution event for North America. We’re energized to connect with the industry, customers, and partners to share innovations and technologies that transform energy, improve operational efficiencies, and advance sustainability goals.  

Our team will be on stage and at the Microsoft booth together with our partners and customers to highlight success stories in digital transformation, grid flexibility, renewable energy integration, advanced metering, enhancing system operations and reliability, cybersecurity, carbon tracking, and more. Program highlights featuring the Microsoft Energy team include: 

• Jon Guidroz, Worldwide Strategy Leader, Energy Industry, will join a panel discussion with Exelon and Itron to share insights on digital partnerships that deliver analytics outcomes. They will describe the growing value of analytics integrated to the meter to support utility outcomes in outage management, customer engagement, distributed energy resources (DER) and electric vehicle (EV) integration, distribution automation, and other applications.
• Hanna Grene, Director, Americas Power and Utilities, will host a fireside chat with Exelon’s Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer, Sunny Elebua, to share sustainability initiatives at Exelon as well as other leading decarbonization practices across the industry. 

Accelerating digital transformation through collaborative partnerships  

As we continue the journey to a net-zero future, Microsoft is proud to announce an expanded partnership with a key partner, Itron. With the enormous energy challenges the world is facing, collaboration has become more important than ever to get to net-zero. Through strategic partnerships, Microsoft continues to extend our global energy partner ecosystem that fosters innovative technology development and enables digital transformation.

Through the expanded partnership, Microsoft and Itron will help accelerate cloud adoption and the next generation of consumer and grid edge solutions for the utility industry. The collaboration uniquely brings together Itron’s leading energy management solutions and Microsoft’s leading cloud solutions to transform how end users view and manage their energy, and how utilities meet the demands of a rapidly changing industry. The collaboration between Itron and Microsoft will enable utilities to take advantage of cloud computing technology—in particular, edge computing—to accelerate advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) 2.0 capabilities including cloud-native analytics, distribution automation, carbon reporting, and an overall more flexible, scalable system to support customer and utility outcomes for a distributed, resilient energy grid. 

Together, Microsoft and Itron will partner to develop solutions that deliver insights and benefits for utilities to reach their goals, including grid resilience, decarbonization, consumer engagement, and operational efficiency.

Another key relationship we’re pleased to highlight is with Schneider Electric, which represents a partnership spanning more than 30 years fueled by a shared vision for energy efficiency and sustainability. At the heart of this partnership, Schneider’s solutions are powered by the most advanced evolution of Microsoft Azure and integrate process and energy technologies to deliver the full efficiency and sustainability potential for utility grids, buildings, data centers, industry, and infrastructure. Working together, and with the unique expertise Microsoft and Schneider can bring, we have the ability to accelerate progress and our continued partnership will enable us to get there. Learn more during Schneider’s presentation at the Microsoft booth on Monday, May 23, 2022. 

Microsoft’s vision for a net-zero future 

Technology will play a larger, more important role in helping the energy industry decarbonize and achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. No matter where companies are on their sustainability journey, Microsoft provides technology solutions that enable an easier, faster, automated way for organizations to collect and record environmental data, report actionable insights, and reduce carbon emissions. To support companies on this critical journey to net-zero, we are pleased to introduce Microsoft Sustainability Manager, available on June 1, 2022.

Our Sustainability Manager, a component of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, integrates powerful solutions delivered by Microsoft and our partners to help organizations manage sustainability progress end to end. These solutions offer a more automated and comprehensive view into the emissions impact of their entire operations and value chain by enabling organizations to record and more accurately report their emissions, and continually test and optimize reduction strategies to reach their goals. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability brings together capabilities that help organizations unify data intelligence and identify opportunities to build a more sustainable IT infrastructure. We encourage you to visit our DISTRIBUTECH booth to meet the Microsoft Sustainability team and experience firsthand how the solution can advance your company’s journey to net-zero. 

Join us at DISTRIBUTECH in Dallas, Texas 

If you are attending DISTRIBUTECH International 2022, we look forward to seeing you at the show and at the Microsoft booth 1023, where you can meet with the Microsoft Energy team, our partners, and customers and learn how we are working together to power a sustainable future.  

Resources

Since announcing the general availability of Azure Government Secret and Top Secret clouds, our mission has been to support all US government agencies, departments, municipalities, and public sector employees with the most advanced, secure, and compliant productivity and collaboration tools. Today, we’re excited to announce the upcoming launch of a new US Government cloud environment: Office 365 Government Secret which is currently in government review pending accreditation and targeting availability starting mid-2022. This environment is built to support the US Federal Civilian, Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and US government partners working within the Secret enclave with our best-in-class software as a service (SaaS) capabilities.

With the launch of this new environment supporting Impact Level 6 (IL6), we’re adding to the comprehensive set of Office 365 Government cloud offerings to help meet the full spectrum of government data needs.

Driving mission resiliency with cloud productivity and collaboration

Governments face many challenges in today’s globally connected workspaces, including increasing employee engagement and productivity with the latest tools, securing and controlling sensitive data, and managing multiple applications, devices, and workloads. When governments factor in the increasing demands on security and the importance of protecting highly sensitive workloads across an expansive network of government agencies and partners, it becomes increasingly important to provide government employees with secure, productive, and efficient cloud options to help them achieve their missions.

To support the mission-critical workload shift from on-premises to the cloud, it requires us to work closely with the government to provide a secure and trusted infrastructure. This new environment will run the latest enterprise-grade Office 365 Government productivity, security, compliance, and collaboration applications. We have a comprehensive approach to build, test, onboard, and audit our products to be compliant with government regulations, which will help ensure security and compliance for the environments. We work to drive efficiencies internally and with government regulatory bodies to help improve the timeliness of products to market. With this shift to the secure cloud, it’s critical that we work closely with government agencies and partners on their resiliency needs in enabling the innovative enterprise-grade tools and capabilities that will support their missions.

Start your deployment plan now to prepare for the new cloud opportunities

If you plan to deploy Office 365 Secret environment, Microsoft highly encourages customers to engage with our onboarding teams right away to be prepared for when the environment is authorized for use. This includes working with different support groups (like Microsoft FastTrack, Microsoft Consulting Services, and deployment partners) to plan out remediation activities for identity, networks, devices, on-premises server upgrades, and a pilot plan for migrations. Developing these plans early on will help ensure unique environment transition challenges can be addressed and mitigated before a more comprehensive rollout. If you have any questions or would like help on these next steps, please reach out to your internal organizational mission partners and your Microsoft account team today.

As we approach the end of one of the most tumultuous years in recent memory marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have an opportunity to take stock of how the challenges faced by governments, businesses and individuals have tested us collectively, and how we have responded. While this pandemic has taught us that no one is 100 percent resilient, government agencies focused on the notion of mission resiliency, including agile infrastructure, ongoing digital transformation and topline security, have proven more capable of quickly pivoting and adapting in the face of a crisis.  We saw government customers embracing innovation at an accelerated rate and expect this to continue – as leaders shift their mindsets and operations to be more agile, anticipating the needs of citizens and government workers.

This pandemic has been tragic and devastating to so many citizens, across the U.S. and globally. As a result of the increasing reliance on technology to support remote “everything,” this period has demonstrated the most accelerated shift to digital transformation in decades. At our third annual Government Leaders Summit, Microsoft’s premier event for U.S. federal government officials, we showcased examples of government customers who have reimagined new ways of working, as they navigate the changing landscape. These stories include:

Digital transformation at the Department of Veterans Affairs – Our teams helped the VA deploy AI-based chatbots, so veterans have 24/7 access to COVID-19 testing, scheduling telehealth visits, refilling prescriptions and even assistance payments. We also helped the VA implement cloud-based dashboards, powered by Microsoft’s Power BI, Bing Maps Platform and Azure App Service to help the agency have near real-time information on bed utilization and even open access to civilians as local hospitals reached capacity with COVID-19 patients.

Rapid shift to remote work for the Department of Defense – In less than a month, the DOD and Microsoft created a Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR) work environment built on Azure Government, Microsoft 365 Government and Microsoft Teams. CVR delivers secure chat, meetings, calls, collaboration and other telework functionality for 3.2 million DOD employees to ensure seamless continuity of operations.

Implementing zero-trust solutions at the Small Business Administration –To help securely manage the nearly 20,000 newly remote workers, the SBA leveraged Microsoft’s cloud security capabilities to enable dynamic security access controls based off of user risk scores, location, user behavior, device, identity and other data. This zero trust-like approach, developed under challenging circumstances, allowed the SBA to operate and meet critical needs like distributing pandemic-related funding while ensuring security and trust in its systems.

Facilitating mission resiliency for government

Microsoft is committed to helping agencies adapt to new ways of work and serve the public and facilitating the goals of mission resiliency. As part of this effort, today we announced a number of advances to our government cloud offerings, including:

Delivering enhanced capabilities for Azure Government – We offer broadest range of commercial innovation for mission at all data classifications, and today my colleague Tom Keane, corporate vice president of Azure engineering, shared an update on new capabilities. We’ve recently completed the buildout of our Azure Government Top Secret regions and we’re working with the U.S. government on accreditation. We’re also expanding the rugged edge portfolio to bring cloud intelligence and compute anywhere you need. And to further mission resiliency, we are offering two additional modules for the Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC): Network High Availability module and the High Availability power module, both add-on feature options for the MDC.

Microsoft 365 Government committed to support U.S. government data requirements – As part of our commitment to supporting federal government agencies, the defense industrial base, and the DOD, we are committed to delivery of Microsoft 365 Government to support U.S. secret and top-secret data. We’ll have more details to share in the new year.

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform update – To support the DOD’s goals of moving mission-critical applications to the cloud, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform have received an IL4 Provisional Authority. This is an important step in our ability to serve defense agencies as it allows them to transfer previously supported datacenters to Microsoft’s managed cloud.

Re-imagining the future together

We’re incredibly excited about this progress and our continued partnership to provide the federal government with the platform it needs to deliver on its diverse and complex missions, whether it’s a rapid shift to remote work or supporting COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Agencies operating with the necessary courage, culture and capabilities have been able to accelerate in the face of adversity. At Microsoft, we are committed to supporting our government customers with trusted technology solutions and people-centric partnerships, which help advance continuity of services and the highest mission resiliency as we build into the future together. For more details about our work, please visit the Microsoft Government page here.

Tags: Azure Government, Dynamics 365 Government, Government, Microsoft 365 Government

Note: In Part 1 of a two-part series, Rick Wagner shines a spotlight on federal agencies demonstrating resiliency to respond and rebound from 2020 challenges and reimagine a future of innovation and transformation.  

As we look ahead to the close of 2020 and the beginning of a new year and administration, I’m more excited than ever to be leading our 3,000-member Microsoft Federal team. Formed in July – the same time I came aboard – this new organization reflects Microsoft’s commitment to, and investment in, federal government agencies and the specialized partners who join us in supporting their mission-critical work.

In this year of unprecedented challenges, we’ve seen U.S. government agencies respond to the health and economic crisis posed by a global pandemic, civil unrest over policing and racial justice issues, raging wildfires, catastrophic hurricanes and more. Unlike the private sector, the business of government is always open, especially during times of uncertainty, adversity and disruption. I’m inspired by the speed of federal agencies to address evolving demands while advancing government and our nation. I’m also proud that Microsoft Federal kept pace with our customers in using technology as a core enabler for innovations that serve everyone.

Leadership, resiliency, momentum

Federal agencies are demonstrating leadership, resiliency and momentum in building solutions for some of the most pressing issues of 2020. That’s why our Microsoft Government Leaders Summit digital broadcast on Dec. 7 is focused on empowering mission and leadership resiliency. With our trusted cloud, AI and other leading-edge capabilities, federal organizations are quickly tackling coronavirus issues to ensure seamless delivery of important services and continuity of operations. For example:

• With the pandemic forcing a move to remote work, the Department of Defense (DOD) needed a rapid global solution. DOD and Microsoft created a secure Commercial Virtual Remote environment built on Azure Government, Microsoft 365 Government and Teams. Computerworld acknowledged DOD’s “rapid deployment in less than a month” to connect millions of workers.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used our Healthcare Bot service to release a Coronavirus self-checker to help the public make decisions about seeking appropriate medical care. By early April, international healthcare organizations had created 1,230 COVID-19 self-assessment bots, reaching 18 million individuals and serving more than 160 million messages.
• Nextgov credited the Department of Veterans Affairs for deploying an AI-powered, conversational coronavirus chatbot using our Healthcare Bot service “to help veterans and their caregivers find answers to pressing questions triggered amid the pandemic.” We expanded on the VA’s efforts to keep veterans safe amid the pandemic through cloud-based dashboards, built with Microsoft’s Power BI, Bing Maps Platform and Azure App Service and other initiatives supported by technology.
• Roll Call and FedScoop reported on the DOD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center integrating supply-chain data to better inform the military’s response to the pandemic. In weeks, Project Salus produced an Azure- and AI-powered prototype with data from 150-plus sources to quickly assess national supply chains and identify potential shortages of water, medicines, food and other essentials.

Meeting diverse missions

While the pandemic requires great agility and resiliency, federal agencies also moved forward across several fronts to better meet their diverse missions, such as:

• Veterans Affairs, Microsoft, Medivis and Verizon joined forces in February as Project Convergence to establish the nation’s first 5G-enabled hospital at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Not only will this public-private partnership result in 5G-based innovations, but it will create opportunities to improve veteran healthcare by leveraging the power of Microsoft HoloLens 2 and our Azure cloud. USA Today recently highlighted this initiative, with Susie Adams capturing its impact: “Doctors will be empowered to plan and perform live surgeries, see ultrasounds in 3D, and train doctors, surgeons and nurses to learn and understand human anatomy in new ways.”
• Microsoft is partnering with the U.S. Air Force to support its mission through more modern IT solutions, including Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure. The move is allowing the Air Force to scale more easily, improve cloud performance, and empower better cross-agency collaboration and communication while complying with strict DOD requirements.
• With two tropical storms headed for the Gulf Coast, we partnered with a U.S. Navy team over the Aug. 22–23 weekend to successfully deploy an enhanced weather model in a production-like Microsoft Azure environment. Capable of rapidly scaling weather and ocean pattern predictions on demand, the system confirmed the potential of using our secure cloud to deliver faster, real-time tropical cyclone forecasts.
• Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are working with Microsoft to use AI and machine learning to help monitor endangered beluga whales, threatened ice seals and polar bears. GCN reported that our AI-powered models reduced analysis time by an impressive 93%.

Accelerating progress

We’re working with the federal government to accelerate progress in other ways, such as The First Five Consortium with the Department of Energy to develop disaster-response AI tools that help first responders quickly address floods, wildfires and windstorms. The Wall Street Journal explained the name as a reference to “the importance of the first five minutes in responding to a natural disaster,” and Susie Adams noted our Azure cloud and AI models will be used to analyze massive and disparate data sets in real time to help first responders better allocate resources or inform the public.

Microsoft Federal and our industry team are pleased to collaborate with the DOD in advancing microelectronics technology and strengthening the American microelectronics industrial base through the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes (RAMP) using Advanced Commercial Capabilities Project. We believe RAMP is vital to protecting national security, maintaining U.S. technological leadership and strengthening the economy.

We also hope the path is soon cleared to begin the essential work on the DOD’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), providing fast, responsive, flexible and adaptive cloud services to users at all classification levels. Originally announced Oct. 25, 2019 but stymied by litigation, we remain committed to delivering the best technology, the greatest value to our women and men in uniform, and the highest speed to adoption, innovation, capability and scale.

Respond, recover, reimagine

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been widely attributed with seeing the world going through three pandemic phases: respond, recover and reimagine. As evidenced by the above examples, federal agencies have successfully responded to initial COVID-19 impacts and are now rebounding through collaboration and modernization with secure cloud and AI solutions. We’re also seeing great strides to shape a future of economic growth, transformation, and increased public trust and confidence.

For more than 40 years, Microsoft has supported federal agencies as they fulfill missions and create more efficient, effective government. Microsoft Federal is fully dedicated to continuing our company’s history of serving as the trusted partner to government customers as they digitally transform, reimagine tomorrow and achieve more for all of us.

An invitation

Please join us for the first-ever digital Microsoft Government Leaders Summit, 10 a.m. to noon ET, Dec. 7. Register today to hear from:

• Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Brad Smith, Toni Townes-Whitley, myself and others discussing the government landscape and what’s needed to address the most pressing issues for federal agencies.
• Federal leaders who are responding to change and recovering through collaboration and modernization.
• Author and historian Walter Isaacson, sharing insights on the leadership and resiliency strategies that powered great historic transformations during challenging times – and how these lessons can provide a roadmap for leaders in times of extreme disruption.

Tags: Government, Microsoft Federal, Microsoft Government Leaders Summit

One the largest fire and rescue services in the UK is going digital, by using Microsoft Surface, M365 and Teams to help them respond to emergencies and train new recruits.

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, which looks after approximately 12,000 square kilometres of Wales, is giving officers Surface Go devices so they can view information about specific vehicles as they are travelling to road traffic collisions.

This means that when they get to the scene of the incident, they can tell firefighters the best places to cut vehicles to free trapped passengers and how to disable undeployed airbags to avoid injury. They can also see live information about the incident, which can be shared instantly with colleagues.

Microsoft’s technology will be used alongside the Mobile Data Terminals found in all fire appliances, which allow firefighters to stay in contact with their control centre but can’t be removed from the vehicle.

Chris Davies, Chief Fire Officer at Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said: “By using Surface Go, our officers can now see all the safety features of a vehicle involved in an accident, wherever they are. This gives firefighters more information about the situation as they safely extricate casualties.

“The use of real-time data and Power BI has transformed what we do. Whether that’s information from an emergency or a live feed from a drone searching for someone injured on a mountain, information allows our staff to understand situations in more detail.

“Technology is also helping us with more straightforward activities, such as using Teams to hold training sessions for firefighters across Wales.”

With 1,400 staff employed in 58 fire stations across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire, Powys and Swansea, arranging for everyone to be in the same place for training is difficult.

With few motorways in Wales, firefighters can spend up to six hours travelling to a training session that lasts an hour or two. Davies has found Teams to be a far more efficient – and safer – solution.

“I’ve been encouraging more staff to conduct remote meetings, because we don’t need to ask all the officers to travel to headquarters, for example,” Davies said. “We can run meetings on Teams and it’s far more effective. People are much more engaged. There’s also less risk to our staff when they’re on the road because they haven’t had to get up very early to travel somewhere.

“It’s simple uses of technology like that which are really changing how our service operates to meet the needs of today’s world.”

Davies, who took over as Chief Fire Officer six years ago, is now looking to build on the success the service has had with Teams and Surface. He wants to use Microsoft HoloLens to create life-sized holograms of some of the buildings in mid and west Wales, which firefighters can look at and interact with during training at their station or on the way to an emergency. This will allow them to understand potential risks, identify safe routes through those buildings, and learn the location of hydrants and sprinklers.

Currently, firefighters look at single line drawings of buildings on a computer screen.

HoloLens could also be used to train officers in how to respond to emergencies at Wales’ oil refineries.

“We have a number of oil refineries in the area, and historically we’ve always trained on those sites,” Davies said. “What HoloLens will enable us to do is actually put Incident Commanders into those scenarios, in an almost live experience but in a safe environment.

“I firmly believe this is going to change the way that we train and maintain the competencies of our firefighters. My vision of what is possible has been completely blown away by Microsoft.”

It’s the latest example of how Microsoft is helping the public sector to use technology to improve how employees work.

Last year, Wales became one of the first countries in the world to give schools free access to Microsoft 365. The Welsh Government paid for all 1,521 “maintained” schools to have access to programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, in a bid to boost the use of technology among pupils and reduce costs for families and headteachers.

Meanwhile, an agreement struck between NHSX, NHS Digital and Microsoft in June will save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds and enable all eligible organisations in England to access Microsoft 365 digital tools.

Chris Perkins, General Manager of Public Sector at Microsoft UK, said: “There has never been a more important time for companies and organisations to use technology that helps staff collaborate, communicate and gain insight into the world around them. This is even more critical when those people are employed by our vital public services, which work tirelessly to keep us all safe and well.

“Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service is adopting technology at scale, allowing firefighters and officers to create a network of information that can be shared and acted upon. It is a fantastic example of how placing cutting-edge technology in the hands of skilled people can lead to ground breaking solutions.”

Read the full customer story here.

Tags: HoloLens, M365, microsoft, public sector, surface, teams

Never before have we seen enterprises adapt and transform as rapidly as they have since the arrival of COVID-19. In the private sector, these decisions have come relatively easily (even if the execution is hard): meet the customer where they are, expand infrastructure to meet the ballooning digital demand, and enable legions of employees to work remotely. It’s simply a matter of good business.

Sometimes perceived as slow to adopt digital transformation, how can government entities become agile champions of the cloud and cloud analytics? To explore this topic, I spoke with Steve Bennett, Ph.D., formerly with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where he led teams working in biological surveillance, and currently Director, Global Government Practice, SAS.

Daniel: Steve, based on your experience working in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, what did you see as some of the main challenges the government faces with adopting cloud computing and leveraging the potential of cloud analytics?

Steve: When I worked at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, we were using analytics to understand new health threats, and we had two challenges that were a constant headache. One was how we store data and remain compliant. The other was managing a large collection of tools—one to enable visualization and dashboards, another for optimization, and yet another for machine learning and predictive analytics.

Daniel: Storing data in a compliant manner and then being able to manage a set of analytics tools are two challenges that I have seen as well. People may not think of a government or a city council as having a large amount of data to store and analyze. However, government Internet of Things (IoT) estates are quite large. Think of light poles, luminaires, air quality sensors, water meters, and water quality management systems. All of these are connected and generating a huge amount of data. For the government to digitally transform, government analysts will need to make sense out of all that data on a large scale. They will need to see patterns, and eventually make predictions. How do you recommend government teams get started?

Steve: With the vast amount of data generated by government IoT projects and the performance requirements, cloud computing makes sense. Cloud computing provides the ability to scale elastically and on-demand, it supports policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen security, and it eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software.

In terms of analytic tools, teams should evaluate how tools model data, the process used for extract transform load (ETL), and the simplicity of the user interface. They should make sure the analytics tools democratize the analysis process.  All types of users (business, engineering, data science, and IT) should be able to access, explore, visualize, and transform data into insights.

Daniel: Can you give an example of how cloud-based analytics has been applied in the government?

Steve: Let’s look at a solution that was implemented by SAS and Microsoft for the Town of Cary, North Carolina, USA. During storm events, Cary had no visibility into nearby river levels or how quickly the water was rising. Traditionally, the town relied on citizens to alert them of floods through phone calls, text messages, and other means. The town staff processed these requests manually dispatching public work personnel to erect barriers and close roads.

A key requirement for the Town of Cary was that their new flood prediction system needed to integrate with existing business systems. These included using the SAS Visual Analytics dashboard integrated with ArcGIS for real-time visualization, Salesforce for alerts, automated notifications, and work orders, and data sharing for regional partner response systems.

The Town of Cary installed water level sensors at various points along the Walnut Creek stream basin and rain gauges at several Town of Cary owned facilities. Data on stormwater levels were transferred to the Azure cloud over an LTE wireless connection.

Azure IoT Hub was used to provision, authenticate, and manage the two-way communication to the sensors. SAS Analytics for IoT combined streaming data from sensors and gauges with weather data for real-time scoring, dashboarding, and historical reporting. SAS Visual Analytics provided an interactive dashboard, reports, business intelligence, and analytics. The dashboard integrated with ESRI ArcGIS for additional geographic analysis and data visualization.

With the end-to-end IoT solution, town staff can now visualize flooding events in real-time. Stormwater personnel receive notifications and can generate work orders automatically. The data is also shared with regional partners.

“The Azure IoT platform has been a critical piece of our technology ecosystem and accelerates our ability to scale.” —Terry Yates, Smart City Strategist, Town of Cary

These predictive analytics applications have immense effects on city budgets, and more importantly, human lives—but they wouldn’t be possible without the scale of the cloud.

“We’re still connecting some of the dots, but we’re already seeing real benefits in the automation of formerly manual processes. Previously, we might get a call from a citizen, which would cause us to dispatch public works or emergency services depending on the type of flooding. Now the data triggers alerts that automatically notify stormwater personnel, who can react and address the flooded areas. It’s much more efficient and could ultimately save lives.” —Nicole Raimundo, Chief Information Officer, Town of Cary

Daniel: That’s an excellent example. How do you see cloud computing and analytics playing a role as governments address climate change?

Steve: As governments are compelled by climate change to make commitments around sustainability, carbon management, transportation, or emergency response, the importance of a connected data system that can drive predictive insights becomes clear. Natural disasters are increasing at unprecedented rates and can cost local government tens or even hundreds of millions to recover.

Daniel: Thanks, Steve. How would you like to close our discussion today?

Steve: Governments have a wide range of motivations for adopting analytics in the cloud. Analytics help governments identify fraud and help police become more efficient in investigations. And in the healthcare space, we’re using analytics to find anomalies in public health, figure out how to optimize hospital bed usage, and manage a supply chain for personal protective equipment in the wake of COVID-19.

The possibilities of powerful analytics in government are truly exciting. I recommend that public institutions embrace the cloud quickly to drive tangible results.

From connecting and drawing insight out of city-wide IoT footprints to reversing entire tax systems in a matter of days, only the cloud can meet the new demands placed on the government. It’s simply a matter of good government.

Next steps

Learn more about how Microsoft and its partners like SAS are promoting citizen well-being, influencing positive societal change, and enhancing government services.

Learn how SAS and Microsoft are partnering to further shape the future of analytics and AI.