Image: Recoding America Author Jennifer Pahlka speaks at the We Are NC Gov conference in Raleigh on Oct. 25, 2023.
The N.C. Department of Information Technology partnered with the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality on Oct. 25 to host the fourth We Are NC Gov conference highlighting North Carolina's digital transformation and how digital services can be thoughtfully designed to meet the evolving needs of the state.
Spearheaded by NCDIT's Digital Solutions team, the event included opening remarks from NCDIT Secretary and State Chief Information Officer Jim Weaver and a keynote by featured speaker Jennifer Pahlka, author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. Both addressed the importance of making sure government is working for people in the digital age and the need for collaboration and continuous improvement.
“We cannot continue to do it the way we’ve always done it,” said Weaver, reiterating the need to streamline processes and services.
Pahlka echoed this sentiment, encouraging participants to ask, “What’s not serving us? What would serve us better?” and “What’s really holding us back?”
She also discussed the need to eliminate the divide between “policy” people and “technology people” to ensure that our work is being implemented in the right way, saying that “it has to make sense to a person.” Along with this, she emphasized the importance of looking at who has a seat at the policy table and asking, “Are the people the right people to make this decision?”
“The problems we are dealing with are really hard,” she said. “There are no silver bullets.”
The event also included presentations by the Digital Solutions team highlighting NCDIT’s award-winning Digital Commons platform, automated accessibility testing and the introduction of Monsido as a tool to enhance the quality of digital content.
NCDEQ also shared about its permitting transformation program that centers on the development of an online system for applying, tracking and paying for environmental permits. The goal of the initiative, which is being completed in partnership with NCDIT, is to streamline and modernize the permitting process while also creating publicly accessible data.
Visit our Digital Solutions page to learn more.