Pandemic Creating Long-Term City Solutions to Technology Challenges: Route Fifty Town Hall

March 24, 2021 – Partnerships between cities and tech companies have not only allowed municipalities to acquire technology to get online quickly during the pandemic, but it’s also helped city staff absorb technological training to address challenges in the future, a virtual town hall heard Tuesday.

“Government too, can be adaptable and flexible,” said Heidi Norman, acting director of innovation and performance for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Asked by Dell innovation officer Tony Encinias what allowed Norman to embrace remote working during the past year, she said having relationships with tech companies like Dell helped keep Pittsburgh connected with computers, hotspots, and Wi-Fi routers when in-person work was not an option.

The town hall, which heard about experiences during the first full year with Covid, was hosted by Route Fifty, a digital news publication from Government Executive Media Group, which also publishes Government Executive magazine, GovExec, Nextgov and Defense One.

Pittsburgh had to adapt and move fast and focus on getting eligible people to work remotely and, with that, more digital software was a priority. The city had to ensure its plans were executed and communicated clearly between its staff and city residents. And to accomplish that, proper videoconferencing technology was needed. 200 city employees were able to work from home in less than 2 weeks on new Dell laptops.

Pittsburgh’s government was able to prove it can do things in new and better ways, Norman said, as it had no other choice but to increase its remote working ability. As the pandemic was emerging, much of the city staff had not worked with many of the technologies needed to work remotely, she added. Staff needed to be trained on new videoconferencing technology and learn how to set up home offices as they began working from home.

Ed Zuercher, city manager of Phoenix, Arizona, said during the event that the pandemic should create long-term “systems” to address its effects rather than bring about temporary “responses.” The city has since been able to maintain its pandemic-driven response by partnering with Dell and turned it into a system that now has plans to keep its staff with the right skills to continue being able to serve its residents.

Pittsburgh also plans to stabilize its foundational IT structure into the cloud and to establish a new wide area fiber network called NetPGH, Norman said.