CITY OF KALAMAZOO
Tim Dubois , CIO for the City of Kalamazoo discusses the city ’ s digital transformation strategy to continuously improve and better serve its residents
The City of Kalamazoo started out as a small village in Southwest Michigan . As the city began to grow following its founding in 1831 , it became a city of many firsts . “ We built the first outdoor pedestrian mall in America in 1959 , Checker Taxi , a dominant taxi cab company started here , and so did Gibson Guitars . We ' ve continued to grow . Today , we have Western Michigan University , as well as Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo Valley Community College . We have a young population here with the university and colleges ,” says Tim Dubois , CIO for the City of Kalamazoo .
Since joining the city as CIO , Dubois has seen Kalamazoo continuously evolve . “ It ' s continued to evolve from trying to recover from a lot of the tight budgets placed on us and the running costs and maintenance of infrastructure over the past 10 years . We are currently working towards expanding further into digital transformation across the city . We ’ ve started some initiatives in the smart city area , going beyond just repairing people ' s computers and taking care of the servers , and moving more into technology and putting that technology into the hands of our departments and the rest of the city .“
Delving deeper into the city ’ s digital transformation , Dubois explains that Kalamazoo ’ s strategy has been a bit of a start-stop one . “ We ’ ve come up against issues and problems , and when looking for a solution we intend to find a digital one that can be implemented . But our overall strategy is to move towards a digital government .
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