City of Dayton, CIO: Connectivity is the new currency

Jonathan Rike, CIO, City of Dayton, speaks with Steve Perry, Account Manager, Encore, about the inclusion of tech in a public sector organization and the approach to retaining talent.

Speaking on goals for the coming years, Rike highlights a couple of issues for consideration:  A, if the organization has the infrastructure like cloud computing, etc., to be successful in scale. And then, B,  utilizing resources to provide equity and equality.

“You've heard the term ‘smart cities’; I'm not necessarily a big fan of that. But I’m a big fan of the connectedness of cities, how we do that and what it looks like. That's everything, from the sensors on streetlights to the way that we digitize parking meters, etc. Five, 10, 20 years down the road, connectivity to me is the new currency,” he says.

He explains that the opportunity is not only to create greater levels of resiliency and redundancy among organizational entities but also to incentivize economic development. Being a city government, a goal is to use resources to provide equity and equality.

“In most cases, a lot of the for-profit companies want to focus on areas of your city that drive profits. So when I look down the road, it's about building our infrastructure, internally for the city but externally for our citizens in a way that allows us to scale and to start to bridge the divide between the haves and have nots,” Rike adds.

He maintains that the best decision-makers are driven by great data centers. So, it is necessary to connect to gain insight and use the data to drive decisions.

According to Rike, it's challenging for a city to be able to compete because it’s not exactly at the cutting edge like Facebook or Google.

“We've got to find individuals who want to make a difference in somebody's lives right there. They're doing it because they enjoy public service. Our focus is quality of life. And how do we use IT to drive higher levels of quality? When I look back over my career, I don't want to think about how much money I've made but to think about how many lives I've changed. And I think we provide those opportunities on a day-to-day basis,” he says.

As technology becomes even more ingrained, he adds, there will be tremendous opportunities to use technology to change lives and get deeper into communities, meeting customers and citizens where they are.

“If you work in IT with the City of Dayton, there is no mistake in the value that you bring to the table because you get to see it and feel it every day. In corporate, in private, there's typically a lag between what you do and the financial reporting. Our business isn’t profit-driven. It gives us an opportunity to focus on something bigger.”

Rike further highlights that the management makes deliberate efforts to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion, and bring a diverse school of thought. “I found that a combination of experiences and perspectives is what makes a team really good,” he concludes.