URISA Honors "Exemplary Systems"

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) has announced its 2009 Exemplary Systems in Government Award winners.

The winner in the Enterprise Systems category was Virtual Charlotte (City of Charlotte, NC) which uses a map-based front-end to organize city services:

Virtual Charlotte effectively provides a wide range of users with important real-time information from diverse data sets in a familiar (Google-like) interface that is easy to understand and simple to use.

There were two other systems that were honored as "Distinguished" in this category:

• The Regional Land Information Database (RLID) of the Lane Council of Governments, in Oregon, and
• SewerView, from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, in Wisconsin. (This, by the way, is now my all-time favorite system name).
  

There were two winners in the Single Process Systems category.

One was City of Airdrie's Online Census in Alberta (Canada), which is "a secure, real-time, virtually paperless data collection process that simplifies the city’s census process for clerks, enumerators, and citizens."

The other was the GIS Mobile Emergency Response System (ERS) in Forsyth County, Georgia, which uses GIS data and technology to support first-responders and emergency management officials.

Additionally, the County’s use of the Homeland Security data model was forward thinking and will allow the system to be easily integrated into wider emergency response situations if needed. This application can certainly serve as a good example for other entities wishing to create an emergency response system that keeps people in the field and back in the control centers ‘in the know’ during critical situations.