2024 Government Innovation Show - New York

The mission of the Department of Civil Service is to “build tomorrow’s workforce today by promoting a diverse, inclusive, and talented workforce.” Each day, as the Department of Civil Service seeks to carry out this mission, the Department is focused on better meeting the needs of our partner agencies by building a workforce of public servants to provide the critical services that New Yorkers rely on across the state. The Department is also focused on better meeting the needs of jobseekers and is working on several fronts to embed the agency in the very communities where jobseekers live and work. This keynote address will highlight the many innovative initiatives the Department is undertaking to provide exceptional service to the many stakeholders we serve.

In this session we hear from the State Accountability team at Office of the NYS Comptroller discuss their approach to innovation, leveraging technology and AI in both their own work, and in the audit of others. They will share recent process improvements, and the challenges and opportunities that have come with those, as they work to create user-oriented internal processes.

In this technical session we will hear from New York City Council’s Chief Data Scientist on how his team of data scientists and web developers are creating efficiencies, reducing inaccuracies, and enabling teams to focus their time more productively across the NYC Council department through building RAG and LLM models in-house. Alaa will cover his learnings on what is required from a resource and technology perspective, as well as the importance of prioritizing an education and learning team culture.

In this session, we will hear from the New York State Department of Civil Service on their journey to transform the Civil Service Merit System. The session will cover the evolution of the Civil Service process over the past twenty years, including how the agency has implemented technology components to better ensure accessibility for all New Yorkers. We will hear from three different program areas that are implementing meaningful change across the Department. While much work has been done to date, the agency continues to look toward the future and is working to implement new innovative systems to better meet jobseekers where they are to build a public workforce that is welcoming to all and is reflective of the communities we all serve.

• What are todays Modern User Expectations? People expect seamless, intuitive digital experiences similar to those from tech companies they use every day, but current state services often fall short of these expectations.
• User research helps us better understand the needs of real people and the ways in our which our products and services are not meeting those needs or creating bad experiences.
• How do you ensure you have consistent UI components? Unified user experience and building trust with users, and a shared component library that provides developers with reusable design elements and utilities.

This panel session will host government leaders from New York who will share why collaboration is important and why everyone in the audience should look for collaborative opportunities. The panel will share their own case studies of working to overcome obstacles within IT through leveraging collaboration opportunities with New York State, New York City and local IT business and government communities.