SURVEY: Hawai‘i First Place in Emerging Technologies

According to the Center for Digital Government’s 2018 Digital States Survey, Hawai‘i is ranked first among fifty states in emerging technologies/innovation. It also ranked second for its exemplary work in support of collaboration.

In addition to those rankings, Hawai‘i received an overall grade of B+ in the Digital States Survey, up from B in 2016. Under the Digital States criteria, a grade of B reflects states that are trending up. These states show results in many survey categories, and their leaders use modernization to change entrenched practices to prepare for more sustainable operations. Incentives for collaboration are in place, and performance measures are used in key areas.

The Center believes that letter grades are an effective way to reflect the work of states in this important area.  Moreover, letter grades provide a way of assessing progress over time within individual states—all with the end goal of improving performance, state by state.

“I’m proud of the progress we’ve made in technology and innovation,” said Gov. David Ige. “Modernizing government has been my one of my top priorities since becoming governor.”

“Although there is still much work to be done, I am pleased with this achievement and look forward to improving our overall grade,” said Todd Nacapuy, chief information officer. “I congratulate all our team members for their hard work in helping us earn this recognition.”

Since its inception 21 years ago, this biennial e-survey has helped benchmark state government use of digital technologies to improve service delivery, increase capacity and reach policy goals.

In addition, the survey was designed to highlight best and emerging practices that can be shared across borders—success in one state can help fuel progress in others. The survey recognizes these achievements and provides a common reference for all 50 states in the ongoing work of finding better ways to do the public’s business. To those ends, the Center for Digital Government awarded a letter grade to each of the 50 states.

A national overview of all 50 states and their grades can be viewed online.

To see the awards article and the 50-state summaries, go online.