This article by Chad Swiatecki originally appeared in the Austin Monitor.

Describing the patchwork of roughly a dozen information management systems her employees have to use to manage the city’s affordable and low-income housing network, Rosie Truelove said it’s time for Austin’s tech sector to help the city run smarter. With data siloed because of incompatible system architecture and other related technology problems, she said she’s limited in her role as director of Neighborhood Housing and Community Development.

While laying out her department’s need for a central data management platform to members of Austin’s technology community on Monday, Truelove joined managers from more than a dozen departments within city government in helping to frame the problems local government needs help solving.

by Brian Dietrich, Chair, Education Committee

Welcome to our new Austin City Up Education blog series.  No matter how you got here,  we hope you will return regularly to review and potentially contribute to our progressive Education blog series.  

The charter of our Education consortium is to evaluate and develop technology projects that will positively impact students in central Texas schools, community colleges and universities. Our group is a diverse group of individuals and technology companies that are coming together collectively to establish collaborations,  provide thought leadership, develop campus projects and facility community engagement. As the EdTech marketplace rapidly evolves, new technologies are being adapted for use in the classroom, at home, and on the go that will accelerate student academic achievement through personalized learning best suited for a particular student's learning modality.

by Joe Iannello, President, Austin CityUP and VP CIO, Capital Metro

Welcome to the 2018 edition of Austin CityUP!   This is really a great time to be in Austin and there are so many transformational opportunities that will literally change and improve the way residents and visitors will experience this great city and surrounding area.  As you know, Austin CityUp exists as a non-profit, public/private consortium to help facilitate the realization of some of these opportunities.  

I would very much like to thank our board of directors, who in early February, 2018, elected me to be the new president of Austin CityUP.  We are fortunate to have a great group of talented and experienced individuals who are members and those who serve on our board of directors and in our management group.

Austin CityUP members and followers, Austinites, and other aficionados of smart cities:

Austin CItyUP Consortium was hard at work in 2017, our first full year.  We secured our first funding, an award for an affordable housing database development project. We started several other collaborative projects that are in design phases, applied for project grants, and laid a strong foundation for achieving our ultimate vision of a comprehensive, integrated, inclusive, sustainable and evolving smart city infrastructure in Austin. ​