Several Major Systems Due for Modernization in Hawaii
Chief Information Officer Christine Sakuda explains how the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to update older technologies, but the state workforce will also need new skills to support modern services.
There's a lot of legacy IT underpinning the critical work of government in Hawaii. At the NASCIO Annual Conference in New Orleans, state CIO Christine Sakuda talked to GT about the partnership between her organization, the Office of Enterprise Technology Services, and state agencies to upgrade their technology infrastructure in areas like unemployment and financial management.
“We’re placing a lot of effort on modernizing our legacy systems and creating a very solid foundation for us to build off of that so that we can get to leveraging data and AI in the future,” she said.
But these major upgrades require new skills, Sakuda pointed out, so a parallel priority is to equip the state workforce to provide more modern services to the state’s residents as well as its significant visitor population.
“How can we help the workforce transition as the legacy projects decrease, and as the modernization projects increase?” she asked. “It’s a top priority of mine to support the IT workforce.”
Noelle Knell is the executive editor for e.Republic, responsible for setting the overall direction for e.Republic’s editorial platforms, including Government Technology, Governing, Industry Insider, Emergency Management and the Center for Digital Education. She has been with e.Republic since 2011, and has decades of writing, editing and leadership experience. A California native, Noelle has worked in both state and local government, and is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, with majors in political science and American history.
Thad Rueter writes about the business of government technology. He covered local and state governments for newspapers in the Chicago area and Florida, as well as e-commerce, digital payments and related topics for various publications. He lives in Wisconsin. <br/>
