Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Omnibus Appropriations for Utah Technology The latest federal appropriations bill contains funding for quite a few interesting technology projects in the state, including: Digital Image Archive and Processing Center, USU $1 million This center collects, archives, processes and disseminates satellite imagery – made accessible to participating state and federal land management agencies. Space Dynamics Laboratory Space Dynamics Lab (SDL) Calibration Center, USU $1 million The Calibration Center at SDL is one of the preeminent facilities in the country for calibrating infrared and cryogenically cooled detection devices primarily used in NASA satellites, DoD systems and by astronomers Geographic Information System and Cadastral mapping $300,000 Funding will be used for the state of Utah’s continued compilation of the Geographic Information System and Cadastral mapping used for land-use planning activities. Various public safety / homeland security projects including Sandy City, rural Utah, and Juvenile Justice more details in the Salt Lake Tribune The bill also contains a $107 million contribution to the Global Environment Facility. 8:43:18 AM    comment []

GIS Expo in Salt Lake City The Grand Canyon webcam is one of many great webcams operated by the Dept. of the Interior.  The site also offers a nice summary of current conditions in one of my favorite national parks. The Southwest Alliance is a group of people in the area surrounding Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah that have joined together to influence state and local government decisions.  UTOPIA has begun construction of their fiber network in Orem.  Service is supposed to be available in the first half of 2005.  Orem is one of a number of Utah cities who use Petfinder to list animals at their animal shelter.  It looks like a great way to add another egov service to a cities website since Petfinder offers their service free which allows users to search for pets by zipcode (proximity).  The Mountainland Association of Governments has a trailfinder GIS application that maps out the growing number of trails in the area. Virginia has always been pretty good at egov and the cities in the Hampton Roads area seem to be among the leaders.  They are implementing a variety of new cost-saving, service-enhancing initiatives. Here is California's Strategic IT Plan which was released this month by CIO Clark Kelso.  The CIO will appoint a Director of e-Services that will focus on the implementation of five key projects that will be selected in specific areas by March of 2005.  The e-Services Director will support business-driven initiatives similar to what we did here with the Deputy CIO over eGovernment.  By March 2005, the CIO will create a cross-agency workgroup similar to Utah's eGovernment Product Management Council and will appoint a Geospatial Information Officer (GIO).  I think that we already have that in Dennis Goreham, the manager of Utah's Automated Geographic Reference Center.  By the way, speakers at the GIS Expo scheduled for December 9th in Salt Lake City will include experts from AGRC.  You can register online with ESRI. The Dept. of Interior operates a couple of portal sites that I was previously unaware of; the National Business Center, which is involved in a variety of egov initiatives and the PMB web portal. 7:59:38 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David Fletcher.