OAKLAND, CA – Today, the Open Justice Broker Consortium was named among the inaugural winners of the Code for America Technology Awards at the 2015 Code for America Summit. OJBC is being recognized for its Open Justice Broker platform, which supports better information sharing and integration in the justice system through use of open source software and cross-boundary collaboration.
Code for America (CfA) partnered with Google for Entrepreneurs on the awards program. OJBC is one of 12 recipients, with winners nationally selected by a panel of judges from both the technology and public sectors.
The Technology Awards recognize tools and platforms that help government work better for the American people in the 21st century. The $142 billion government technology market is opening to new vendors and new approaches to improve the delivery of public services—and this award recognizes the work of companies, public servants, and others whose outstanding products and implementations set a high bar.
CfA and Google officials presented the award to Mr. Matthew Ruel, Chair of the OJBC Board of Directors and Director of the State Bureau of Identification, Maine State Police, and Mr. Scott Came, OJBC Executive Director.
“The Code for America Technology Award is a great recognition of the pioneering work done by the states of Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and Michigan—as OJBC members—to improve their justice systems through innovative technology,” said Mr. Came. “OJBC’s mission is to make this powerful technology available to as many jurisdictions across the United States as we can, particularly to local governments like cities and counties that can benefit from the capabilities of this technology.”
OJBC Chair Ruel said: “This recognition from Code for America—which has done so much to encourage innovation in cities and counties throughout the country—should help carry the message to local government about the power of data-driven decision-making and integration across agency boundaries. The OJB can help deliver on these important goals for local government—as it has already for state governments.”
The OJBC is a nonprofit membership organization of government agencies and jurisdictions that is dedicated to improving justice information sharing through the reuse of low-cost, standards-based integration software. The Open Justice Broker platform offers core information-sharing capabilities for users to customize, deploy, and exploit, including streamlined federated query, subscriptions and notifications to event alerts, federated identity management, privacy policy enforcement, automation of key justice workflows, data analytics, and more.
The 2015 Code for America Summit, held Sept. 30–Oct. 2 in Oakland, CA, brings together innovators from hundreds of governments across the U.S. along with civic-minded technologists, designers, community organizers, and entrepreneurs. The 1,300 attendees are delving into how to transform government together so it works for the people, by the people, in the 21st century. This includes harnessing the power of community, embracing digital, and putting user needs first.