Councils have been celebrated for utilising the latest advancements in technology to enhance their community services at MAV Technology’s Annual National Conference and Awards for Excellence.

The major award winners are:

Customer Experience: City of Boroondara’s Digitising Hard Waste

Hard waste collection is now organised through an app via smartphones and tablets, resulting in a more coordinated service, and the status of customer-requested collections are now updated in real time.

Employee Experience: Melton City Council’s Labour Budget Management Solution

The implementation of this new solution allowed Melton City to recover $10 million in unspent labour budget, increase labour capitalisation from $5 million to $12 million in a single financial year, and extended visibility and opportunities for grant funded positions.

Collaboration and Partnership: City of Casey’s Digital Equity Living Lab

A novel approach to address the challenges around achieving Digital Equity in Doveton, Casey’s most digitally excluded suburb. Digital Doveton (as it became known) built confidence and understanding in digital opportunities and demonstrated new approaches to the development of customer-focused services through an innovation enabled environment.

Emerging Technologies: City of Greater Geelong’s Protecting Grey-headed Flying Foxes

The project protected grey-headed flying foxes from climate change by using IoT weather sensors and a centralised data platform to monitor environmental factors in real time and integrated water misting sprinklers to mitigate heat stress.

Data Insights: Melton City Council’s Moving Melton Transport Prospectus.

The Moving Melton Transport Prospectus is an interactive website with compelling evidence for the road, rail, bus and active transport projects urgently needed. The website includes an interactive project map, population and travel data, and 3D renders.

National Achievement Award: City of Sydney’s 3D Virtual Tours – Transforming the venue booking journey

Introduced to streamline the journey and increase community confidence. The tours are designed to help alleviate venue suitability anxieties that lead to enquiries and in-person tour requests.

People’s choice: Latrobe City Council’s From Insights to Impacts

Latrobe began its data journey about two years ago, with the end goal to become a data-informed organisation, whereby the use of data and analytics will optimise service delivery and provide an improved customer experience.

Celebrating the sector’s leaders

MAV Technology Manager, Jean Ciancio, said that acknowledging and celebrating the leaders in technology across the local government sector is an important way for MAV Technology to highlight the great work its members are doing for their staff and communities.

“Councils across the state are finding new and innovative ways to do their important work. It’s important we stop and applaud those leading the way on this front.” Ms Ciancio said.

MAV President, David Clark, said that modern challenges call for modern solutions.

“It’s great to see councils from across the state exploring new ways to serve their communities,” Cr Clark said.

“We’re proud to celebrate them with these awards.

“I want to congratulate all the winners on leading the way in this space. I hope it inspires others to continue to push the boundaries in technology and strive for best practice among local government.”