Mohammed Al Rawi is the Public Defender’s first appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO). Mr. Al Rawi oversees the strategic planning and modernization initiatives of information technology, information security and data management for the Office. Mr. Al Rawi also provides vision and leadership in the development and implementation of technology applications and infrastructure supporting the department’s more than 1,100-employee workforce including the development and implementation of the Client Case Management System (CCMS) — the largest digital transformation project in the history of the Office of the Public Defender.
Prior to joining the Public Defender, Mr. Al Rawi served as the CIO for Parks and Recreation, and prior to that he served at the Board of Supervisors, Second District, as Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’s Deputy for Technology and Innovation. Before joining the County of Los Angeles, he was the Technical Director for the Los Angeles Times' news bureau in Baghdad covering Iraq’s war and its aftermath. Mr. Al Rawi brought many innovative solutions to the County of Los Angeles digitizing and automating business processes and solving complex, life-saving, business challenges. Initiatives include the use of advanced video analytics to prevent drowning at County pools, the establishment of a countywide plan to modernize over 100 mission-critical application systems, as well as leading the effort to establish the County’s first consolidated, robust and cost-efficient data center. His leadership and advocacy for innovation was recognized by Government Technology; Mr. Al Rawi was named one of the nation’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers. Mohammed Al Rawi brings more than 16 years of experience in managing complex information technology operations in both the public and private sectors. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science summa cum laude from California State University – Los Angeles.

Avik is responsible for Accenture’s Advanced Customer Engagement (ACE) work for our Public Service clients in North America. Focused on improving citizen and agency experiences with enabling Artificial Intelligent technologies, Avik oversees delivery teams for multiple clients helping automate front, middle and back office functions. He has worked with 15+ local, state and federal agencies.

As Director of Strategic Sales teams supporting the Public Sector at Verizon, Ray leads a group of specialists focused on helping Public Sector clients solve complex business problems in order to achieve their mission critical goals leveraging technology solutions from Verizon.

Jonathan Behnke is the Chief Information Officer for the City of San Diego. He has over 20 years of IT experience managing and implementing technology for a broad range of industries including public sector, contract services, manufacturing, oil, automotive, distribution, consulting, and construction.
In Jonathan’s current role he is responsible for the technology strategy and operations for America's eighth largest City managing data center, network, voice, public safety wireless communications, web services, enterprise applications, IT governance, portfolio management, cybersecurity, and GIS in support of over 11,000 users and 1.4 million residents. He has also lead the implementation of the City’s Digital Equity initiative called SD Access 4 All with expanded no-cost Wi-Fi services at over 300 locations including City libraries, parks, and along many City streets while partnering with non-profits and community based organizations to provide access to devices and digital navigation services.

Phil Bertolini is vice president of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. Previously, he served as deputy county executive and CIO for Oakland County, Michigan. During his 31-year tenure, Phil built a world-class IT organization in the second-largest county in Michigan, just north of Detroit. As Oakland County CIO, he oversaw more than 150 employees serving over 1.2 million residents. In 2005, he was also promoted to deputy county executive, holding dual positions until his retirement. Phil’s efforts earned the county national attention, winning numerous awards for technology innovation and excellence. He was named Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers. He was also honored by the President Obama White House as a Champion of Change.

Clint Buytenhuys is the Regional Vice President of Public Sector at Unqork. Clint is an experienced software executive with more than twenty-five years in enterprise software, SaaS and cloud based solutions focused on improving outcomes for State & Local Government and Education clients and the constituents they serve.
Prior to joining Unqork, Clint held senior leadership positions at Pegasystems and IBM where he had responsibility for driving the growth of IBM’s SaaS business across state and local government, education, healthcare and life sciences.

David Cardenas is the Acting Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Information Officer for the Department of Public Health where he oversees department-wide operations including IT, HR, Finance, Procurement, Contracts and Facilities Management. David leads a team of staff that provides services and support to over 5000 staff and contractors. David is a Public Health and IT professional with over 20 years of service to the residents of Los Angeles County. Prior to overseeing operations and information technology functions for DPH, David served as lead epidemiologist for the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program where he was charged with supporting outbreak response activities and the development of enhanced surveillance systems for bioterrorism. David has a Master’s degree in Public Health with a specialization in Epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor from Loyola University, Chicago School of Law with a certification in Health Law.

Alan is Executive Vice President of e.Republic and Publisher of Government Technology magazine and Techwire. In this role, Alan is involved in the annual production of dozens of events as well as the strategic direction for Governing, Government Technology, Emergency Management, the Center for Digital Government and the Center for Digital Education. Alan is also the senior executive that has overall charge of e.Republic’s research organization which includes, custom research, the Digital Government and Digital Education Navigator tool and the Content Studio (webinars and custom content).
Alan has been a guest lecturer at universities and a frequent speaker for key government and industry organizations. For over 35 years, Alan has worked with industry, education and government officials to help them better understand the importance and use of information technology. Alan received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento.

Jagjit Dhaliwal is working as a Deputy Chief Information Officer in the Office of CIO at Los Angeles County and acts as a Technical Advisor to Health Department’s IT divisions. He oversees Cluster IT strategic objectives, enterprise initiatives, board priorities and technology directives. He collaborates with Department CIOs to foster IT transformation which includes, but is not limited to, IT organization assessment, IT strategy planning, portfolio rationalization, IT governance, cloud migration and adopting emerging technologies like RPA, IoT & Blockchain. He is leading various Countywide initiatives including Digital Divide and RPA enterprise implementation.

As the Minneapolis CIO for seven-plus years, Otto Doll was responsible for all city IT services. He also served as South Dakota’s CIO for 15 years with responsibility for all state government computing, telecommunications, radio and public broadcasting. While with IT research firms, Otto has advised Fortune 1000, federal, state and local government CIOs on information technology assessment and alignment to business needs. He has served as a director with the United States General Services Administration, developing information technology strategic plans and oversight policy.
Otto received his computer science degree from Virginia Tech and is a senior executive fellow of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is a past president of NASCIO – a national organization of state CIOs. He also is a past president of the Metropolitan Information Exchange (MIX) – a national organization of city and county CIOs. Otto was named to Government Technology's 2004 Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers.

Lea Eriksen is the Director of Technology and Innovation and CIO of the City of Long Beach and is in charge of implementing the City’s technology vision, developing a staff of 173 FTE and managing a $57 million operating budget. With more than 20 years of experience working in local government, Lea’s background includes positions related to economic development, budget and finance, and technology. She has an MBA from Xavier University and graduated cum laude from Miami University. Lea also has extensive experience serving on non-profit boards and committees, including the Long Beach Transit Board. Lea is passionate about advancing digital equity and using emerging technology and data to solve civic challenges in Long Beach.

George is a subject matter expert for Partners/Integrators as well as customers in government & healthcare. George provides illustrates use cases and workflow designs to mitigate cyberthreats from increasing use of stolen identities and bot attacks. Workflow solutions include ThreatMetrix Digital Identity risk assessment with physical identity verification and step-up authentication via LexisNexis Risk Solutions physical identity products. George works with various LexisNexis® Risk Solutions business development teams to define Identity solutions for increasing threats to work-from-home environments and partnering with leading Identity and Access Management (IAM) vendors.

As Executive Government Advisor at Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector, Deborah Giles helps governments innovate for their customers. Prior to AWS, Deborah served as a consultant to Fortune 500 technology companies; CEO, Center for Technology; National Government Affairs Director, SHI International; and COO, Texas Health and Human Services Commission. She led enterprise-wide digital transformations, managed workflow modernization projects, directed policy and legislative funding advocacy for large technology projects, and oversaw organizational change projects.

As the Chief Deputy, Registrar Recorder/County Clerk Jeramy Gray serves as the Chief of Staff / Chief Operating Officer for the largest local elections and public records agency in the United States. Prior to his role with the Registrar Recorder County Clerk, Mr. Gray was the Chief Deputy, Executive Officer for the LA County Board of Supervisors. Mr. Gray has held numerous senior IT executive roles in his public sector career. With over 20 years of information technology experience, he has served as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for four LA County departments. Amongst many other accomplishments on February 6th, 2016 Mr. Gray was appointed by the United States Elections Assistance Commission, where he assisted the Federal Government to develop national voting technology standards. Mr. Gray has been featured in publications such as Government Technology, TechWire, Politico, and Harvard Business Review.

Dustin Haisler is the Chief Innovation Officer for e.Republic. As Chief Innovation Officer, he has a strategic role to help shape the company’s products, services, and future direction. Primarily, he leads e.Republic Labs, a market connector created as an ecosystem to educate, accelerate, and ultimately scale technology innovation within the public sector. Dustin began he career at a very young age as the finance director and later CIO for Manor, TX, a small city outside Austin. He quickly built a track record and national reputation as an early innovator in civic tech, for which he was named a Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver in 2009. A member of Code for America’s original steering committee, Dustin pioneered government use of commercial technologies not before used in the public sector – including Quick-Response (QR) barcodes, crowdsourcing, and gamification. Dustin went on to the private sector to help broaden the adoption of these and other civic innovations. His work has been featured in Wired, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Inc., and the Today Show on NBC. An in-demand speaker, he has given two TEDx speeches – one on Disrupting Government (TEDxAustin) and the other on Disrupting Education (TEDxLivermore).

Dylan Hendricks is an Account Manager at Adobe supporting State and Local clients in the western United States along their digital transformation journey. Adobe empowers state and local agencies with the tools they need for forms modernization, web content management, and the future of workforce project management.

As a leader in open data, education, and civic innovation, Jeanne Holm empowers people to discover new knowledge and collaborate to improve life on Earth and beyond. Jeanne is the Chief Data Officer and Senior Technology Advisor to the Mayor for the City of Los Angeles, bringing technical innovations to 4 million people. Her work in Los Angeles focuses on delivering great city services like 311, public television and new media, ShakeAlertLA, and public-private collaborations for technology innovations ranging from data science to 5G. She was formerly the Evangelist for open data for the White House under President Obama, the leader for Africa open data for the World Bank, and the Chief Knowledge Architect at NASA. She is a Distinguished Instructor at UCLA and a Fellow of the United Nations International Academy of Astronautics. She directs two startups that promote peace and social justice through technology and education programs for innovators throughout the world.

Tom Laguna is a Solutions Architect with 25 years of County IT experience in the fields of engineering, development, operations, and security. He assists County departments in the planning, development, and implementation of information systems in the cloud.

Eduardo Magos, as a proud Angeleno, is focused on improving citizen engagement in Los Angeles. He leads teams who build, design, and implement customer service systems for the City of Los Angeles. These include the MyLA311 platform, public safety apps for the Police and Fire departments, and case management systems for the City Attorney’s Office. During the pandemic his teams worked to build out applications for scheduling COVID tests, providing rent relief systems, and coordinating meal delivery from local restaurants to elderly residents.

Gabriel Mullen is a Senior Sales Engineer with Snowflake. Gabe has spent his career working with government customers in a variety of different capacities leveraging technology to meet business goals. He spent 3.5 years as a Solutions Architect at the SAS Institute helping California departments focus on analytical modernization. Before that Gabriel spent about a decade with local systems integrators based in Sacramento, CA designing, developing and implementing technology projects for State and Federal government. He has experience designing OLTP/OLAP databases, custom software development, deploying API interfaces for a Healthcare Data Exchange, and migrating on-prem systems to the cloud.

Dorothy is a Regional Vice President within the Public Sector division at DocuSign. Dorothy helps State and Local Government agencies connect and automate how they prepare, sign, act on, and manage agreements. She’s worked in the technology space for 15+ years.

Mr. Ohanian is the Information Security Oficer for Los Angeles (LA) County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the largest child welfare institution in the nation. He has 20 years of experience in information technology, cybersecurity and defense strategies, risk management, forensics, privacy, compliance, cloud security, business continuity, and software engineering in the private and public sectors. Before DCFS, he served as the first Information Security and Privacy Officer at LA County Counsel. He established an Information Security and Privacy program and ensured compliance with legal mandates.
As a scholarly-practitioner, visionary, and innovative Information Security Officer, Mr. Ohanian has architected and implemented cybersecurity and privacy programs from the ground up, interwoven cybersecurity into the business culture, creating a security-conscious enterprise, and assertively achieved the organization’s mission of service excellence through outstanding leadership, governance, strategic planning, business acumen, and cost-saving transformation initiatives.
Mr. Ohanian is an active member of various Cybersecurity taskforce and workgroups, leads and oversees the Countywide Risk Management Cybersecurity Team responsible for developing and implementing administrative, technical, and tactical strategies to assess and reduce cybersecurity risks to County information assets.
Mr. Ohanian has been a keynote speaker and panel member in numerous private and public sector conferences such as Interop, CISO 360 USA, Los Angeles Government Summit, and National Cybersecurity Awareness seminars. In addition, he is a Ph.D. Dissertation Committee Member for Cybersecurity using Artificial Intelligence at Center for Information Systems & Technology Claremont Graduate University.
Mr. Ohanian’s accomplishments in improving organizations’ cybersecurity posture have led to various excellence awards, including multiple Information Security Officer of the year awards.
Mr. Ohanian has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Cal Poly Pomona (magna cum laude) and obtained his dual Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity and Business Administration at the University of Maryland (UMUC). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology program.

Michael Oren leads enterprise consulting teams across Xerox services offerings (Intelligent Workplace Services, Capture and Content Services, and Customer Engagement Services). With over 15 years of leadership experience, Michael’s mission is to enable growth for organizations helping them create high performing resilient operations while improving the end-user experience.

Zach Patton is the Chief Editor of the Content Studio at e.Republic and Government Technology. He has been covering the public sector for nearly 20 years. Until 2019, he was the Executive Editor of Governing magazine, where he also had served as a staff writer for more than a decade.

Eva Pereira is the Deputy Chief Data Officer for the Mayor’s Office at the City of Los Angeles. Her team leads the delivery of a wide range of data projects around topics like racial equity, census outreach, COVID response, and more. The team recently won the 2020 City Innovator award from Harvard University’s Technology & Entrepreneurship Center and was recognized as an Open Cities Index award winner for the City’s open data program.

Marc Rogers is VP of Cybersecurity at Okta. With a career that spans more than twenty years, he has been hacking since the 80's and is now a white-hat hacker. Prior to Okta, Marc served as the Head of Security for Cloudflare and spent a decade managing security for the UK operator, Vodafone. He was a CISO in South Korea and co-founded a disruptive Bay Area startup. In his role as technical advisor on “Mr. Robot,” he helped create hacks for the show. And, as if that’s not enough, he also organizes the world’s largest hacking conference: DEF CON.

Heather has over a decade of experience as a leader in the public and non-profit sector, with experience in management consultation, team building, professional development, strategic implementations and organizational collaboration initiatives. Heather most recently led the Google project team at the State of Arizona, successfully migrating nearly 36,000 users onto Google Cloud.

Rob Silverberg is the chief strategy and innovation officer for Dell Technologies and leads the Smart Cities focus for Dell Technologies’ state and local government team. In his role, Rob works with state and local government customers across the nation to help these agencies understand how Dell’s broad portfolio of technologies and solutions can help them achieve their goals.

John Spirko is an Executive Enterprise Architect on the Industry Focus Team at ServiceNow. In his role, the primary focus is to work closely with Chief Technology Officers, Enterprise Architects, Solution Architects, and Application Architects to understand their challenges and collaborate on innovative digital service solutions. John believes digital services should be just as accessible, performant, and user-friendly as the leading consumer digital services are. John brings 20+ years of Technical Consulting, Product Management, and Architecture experience from the United States Air Force, AT&T, and Quest Software. He is consistently recognized by clients for his technical aptitude and business focus while driving value and innovation. John is passionate about technology, and he currently runs a Special Interest Group of technical and business leaders charged with delivering innovative digital services to their industry.

Since March of 2006, Michael J. Sylvester has served as an Assistant Director and Chief Information Officer for Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services (DPSS). During his tenure, he presided over the Bureau of Contract and Technical Services, with a workforce of approximately 400+ personnel and responsibility for more than 150 vendor staff, where he was responsible for the Department’s automation/technology strategy, application development and infrastructure and technical support. He was also responsible for providing direct management oversight for the implementation and maintenance of the nation’s largest public benefits eligibility and issuance system, called LRS. Under his leadership, the Department achieved numerous awards at the local, State and national levels for innovation and technology advancement. During his tenure, he has helped transform the Department into a forward looking, agile and technologically capable organization.
From February of 2018 to September 2020, Mr. Sylvester also assumed responsibilities over the Bureau of Special Operations, consisting of a very diverse workforce of approximately 1,900+ personnel. This bureau is responsible for the following programs/operations: the In-Home Supportive Services program, the Communications and Project Management Office, Welfare Fraud Prevention and Investigations, Appeals and State Hearings, Civil Rights, Management and Research Services, Management Information & Evaluation,
Toy Loan and Volunteer Services, as well as Property Management and Space Planning. Since then, he has continued to serve as the Department’s Chief Information Officer and remains closely involved in establishing information technology strategies and promoting innovation throughout the Department, as well as establishing and cultivating key collaborations with other organizations at the Federal, State and local levels. This is evidenced by his leadership and guidance (in both the technical and business areas) over the successful implementation of a new and innovative Department Web portal in 2020 that has vastly improved the user experience and level of customer engagement through; a user-centric, results-oriented and streamlined layout, an easy-to-navigate topology, a mobile device native design and ADA compliant architecture, and an adaptable framework that incorporates user data and advanced analytics to help inform the Department of what changes should be made to the site based upon how the public is accessing (or not accessing sections of) the site.

Teri Takai is vice president of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. She worked for Ford Motor Company for 30 years in global application development and information technology strategic planning. From Ford, she moved to EDS in support of General Motors. A long-time interest in public service led her to the government sector, first as CIO of the State of Michigan, then as CIO of the State of California and, subsequently, the CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense, the first woman appointed to this role. She then served as the CIO for Meridian Health Plan.
Teri is a member of several industry advisory boards. She has won numerous awards including Governing magazine’s Public Official of the Year, CIO Magazine’s CIO Hall of Fame, Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers, the Women in Defense Excellence in Leadership Award and the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

As Executive Editor at e.Republic, Steve is responsible for the coordination of editorial strategies and standards across all the firm’s media platforms. He directs the editorial teams that produce Government Technology, Emergency Management and Digital Communities and their respective Websites, in addition to developing and maintaining corporate policies and standards for editorial. Steve has over 20 years of writing and editing experience including more than 17 years covering technology in the state and local government market.
Steve joined e.Republic in 1996. During his tenure, e.Republic’s print and electronic media have received many awards for editorial excellence, including “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Emergency Management in 2013, “Best New Web Site” from ASBPE for emergencymgmt.com in 2009, ”Best Overall Publication” at the Maggie awards for Government Technology in 2008 and “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Public CIO in 2007.

Juliana Vida is the GVP, Chief Strategy Advisor - Public Sector at Splunk. She and her team of business and cybersecurity advisors provide guidance, direction and thought leadership around Splunk’s Data to Everything platform. She leverages her 30 years of experience as an accomplished military and technology leader to partner with and inspire public sector leaders, customers and internal teams to harness the power of data to drive valuable outcomes.
Prior to joining Splunk, Juliana was a Vice President in Gartner Executive Programs, advising and coaching federal government Chief Information Officers (CIO) and IT senior leaders. Before entering the commercial industry as an executive leader, she served honorably for 24 years as a US Naval Officer at sea and on shore as both a combatant ship driver and helicopter pilot. Her final role in government was as the Navy’s Deputy CIO in the Pentagon where she led policy and governance over technology investments and implementation.

Mark Weatherford is a globally recognized information security professional with experience at some of the world’s largest public- and private-sector organizations. He was appointed as the first deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity at DHS in the Obama administration and was chief information security officer for the state of Colorado and for the state of California under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the energy industry, he was VP and chief security officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, where he worked daily with Congress and electric utilities across North America on cybersecurity standards, regulations, and policy issues. He also served as a principal at The Chertoff Group and was VP and chief cybersecurity strategist at vArmour. Most recently, he was the VP and global information security strategist at Booking Holdings, the world’s largest online travel business with offices and employees in almost every country in the world and whose major companies include Booking, Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable and Agoda.

Ken Wolsey is a Partner at IBM with over 25 years of executive program oversight and complex program delivery experience. He is the go-to-market leader for IBM’s Connect360 product to establish shared data hubs that enable the transformation of Health and Human Service organizations from program-centered to person-centered service delivery. He is the Project Delivery Executive for accounts with the County of San Diego, the County of Sonoma, Washoe County, and Orange County, CA.
Ken has been awarded six patents in knowledge management and system integration architectures. He is a certified Agile Scrum Master, PMI Certified Project Management Professional and IBM Complex Program Manager. He has also been an instructor, author, and speaker for project management, operations management, knowledge management, lean operations, and emergency preparedness.
Ken’s clients have received numerous awards for achievements improving outcomes for their clients through his projects including:
• Best of California Award: Demonstrated Excellence in Project Management” by the State of California Office of Systems Integration
• 2020 IDC Smarter Cities Award
• National Association of Counties Achievement Award
• IBM Innovation and Delivery Excellence Award for "Most Impact on Society and The World
• Financial Times Business Innovation Award
Ken possesses a BS degree from Brigham Young University in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.