Management

Technology Provides the Foundation for Major Federal Projects

The 2020 decennial Census is a reminder of how important IT is to keep the government running.

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Ryan Petersen has worked in publishing for more than two decades, most of it spent creating award-winning content and strategy for CDW’s family of tech magazine brands. As editor-in-chief, he works with his team to develop compelling and useful industry-focused stories to share with the technology world. Outside of work, Ryan enjoys spending time with his children, traveling, online gaming, and following Iowa Hawkeye sports and Cubs baseball.

The federal government is uniquely equipped for big projects — launching moon shots, underwriting scientific research, building dams and highways.

One of its largest, however, is only visible for a few months every 10 years, although its impact resonates beyond its end date. Next year, all U.S. residents will be counted in the decennial census, a tally that determines congressional representation, distribution of billions in federal funds, and more. The Census Bureau has been adding technology to its process for the past few decades, but in 2020, this massive job will be powered by the most advanced technology ever used to count the nation’s population.

From the satellite imagery used to verify addresses to the website where residents can provide their information online and the devices that will be used in a door-to-door effort to count the stragglers, technology will be a critical tool in the 2020 Census.

This 230-year-old program is just one example of how the government is deploying technology to ensure that its most important missions run efficiently. The size and scope of most federal projects these days mean a new reliance on technology, but that means that agencies struggling to staff IT departments may need help.

Technology Partners Can Help Agencies Achieve Their Goals

The Device as a Service program being used by Census to finish its work is one example; the agency experimented with managing devices itself and found the job too unwieldy.

So CDW is managing DaaS for the Census Bureau, overseeing the deployment of hundreds of thousands of devices next spring so that the Bureau can focus on counting people, not troubleshooting technology. It’s one of the largest DaaS deployments in government, and CDW is proud to be part of this important national project.

Technology touches all agencies. Spurred by policy and their peers’ success, more agencies are moving operations to the cloud. And a top Department of Homeland Security official talks about how best to use blockchain.

As government projects grow more complex, technology becomes the tool to keep them all moving, no matter how big or how small.

U.S. Census Bureau