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January 6, 2022

Discussing Open Data & Transparency with Rishma Khimji

On this episode of Davood for Thought, our guest is Rishma Khimji. Rishma is the CIO for the City & County of San Fransisco - Police Department. Listen in as she chats with us about current projects in her police department involving open data, transparency, and digital transformation. Don't miss her take on a common topic that we cover in our podcast - resilience.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;02

Narrator

We're in an era of rapid change where resilience is vital. The Davood for Thought podcast dives into the most important topics in government and technology today. Our host, Davood Ghods, sits down with his vast network of colleagues to dish on the tech challenges that affect us all. Follow this podcast on your favorite platform and join the conversation by sharing it on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

 

00;00;22;05 - 00;00;46;24

Davood Ghods

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Davood for Thought Podcast. I'm Davood Ghods and I will be your host today. And the way I stay up with the pressing topics of tech and government of today is to tap into the panel of experts. I've had the honor of connecting with over the years. Today we have Rishma Khimji on the podcast.

 

00;00;46;27 - 00;01;23;01

Davood Ghods

Rishma is currently the CIO for the police departments, city and county of San Francisco. She has been in the industry for over 20 years and has worked in public service since 2008. Prior to San Francisco, she was the director of Technology for City of Reno and Director of Technical Services for Albuquerque Police Department. She has a bachelor's degree with a concentration in computer science and a master's degree in economics from the University of New Mexico.

 

00;01;23;03 - 00;01;44;14

Davood Ghods

She is also a project management professional and a certified Scrum master. Rishma, I know there is more to your extensive background, but I would like to welcome you to this episode of our podcast and ask you to tell us more about your experiences, what you have done and what are some of the projects you are currently working on. Welcome.

 

00;01;44;17 - 00;02;10;09

Rishma Khimji

Thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate being a part of your podcast. You've had some wonderful folks be a part of the podcast and their information has been so critical to even my own development. So I appreciate listening to you with you. As you mentioned, I've been in the government space for about 13 years now.

 

00;02;10;12 - 00;02;54;26

Rishma Khimji

I've had the pleasure of working for some very diverse agencies starting in Albuquerque and then moving to Reno. And now I'm in San Francisco at the 12th largest police force in the country, and we're doing some really great things. Currently, we are embarking on technology modernization project and we're incorporating our reform initiatives into some technology solutions. As you may know, the San Francisco Police Department has signed a DOJ reform agreement, and a part of that agreement included a lot of data, acquisitions and analysis.

 

00;02;54;28 - 00;03;27;09

Rishma Khimji

And so we've been working on incorporating the needs for greater transparency into our technology solutions through our records management, through our computer aided dispatching systems, as well as our internal systems for training, internal systems for record keeping of events. And we're just trying to digitize the services that we have to make them more equitable and accessible to our communities.

 

00;03;27;11 - 00;03;52;26

Davood Ghods

Excellent. Thank you. You know, the modernization project is probably using some new technologies. So my next question is related to that. What emerging trends are you seeing in the IT and business fields that we should all be paying more attention to not only your modernization project but your other projects, too?  

 

00;03;52;29 - 00;04;23;04

Rishma Khimji

I think policing in general and in the government space as well. We've come upon a crossroads where there is a greater need for transparency and accountability in our services. And so what we're really seeing is this push to, one, have greater accessibility of our services in the digital space. So we're really working towards enabling our citizens to be able to have engagement with our government agencies and in particular the police department through various methods.

 

00;04;23;04 - 00;04;49;24

Rishma Khimji

So they don't always have to come in. Right. We are a very face to face business. I think government agencies, especially local agencies, are very in tune to that face to face type of delivery. And moving that on to the digital platform simply allows more people to engage with us. But along with that is the need for more transparency of what we're doing, how we're doing it, where we are doing it.

 

00;04;49;26 - 00;05;23;23

Rishma Khimji

And so the need for this increase of data delivery has become really important in the services that we provide. Part of what we are really looking towards doing is holding ourselves accountable for the services that we have, and that's through the delivery of data and showing trends, showing the numbers of work activities such as arrests, showing things such as where we are seeing crime statistics, how we're holding ourselves accountable.

 

00;05;23;25 - 00;05;53;02

Rishma Khimji

Use of force is a huge and very momentous conversation. And so being transparent about our use of force and officer involved situations is critical in ensuring that we have trust with our communities. And so a lot of our projects right now are related to data and the transparency of that data. We're starting to incorporate new technologies while they're new to us.

 

00;05;53;02 - 00;06;26;23

Rishma Khimji  

They're not new in general, but they're new to us using more map based technologies, GIS. We have a great partnership with Ezri, and so we are working with them currently to define a platform that will allow us to have more visual based analytics. We're also looking at our business intelligence platform and updating and upgrading it so that we have more analytical tools on hand to be quicker with our display and promotion of data.

 

00;06;26;28 - 00;06;58;11

Rishma Khimji

So I think those are some of the big things that are happening in the government space. Open data has been around for a very long time, but I think people are now saying we don't want to just know that you have a data source and that you have data availability. We want to see the data in ways that make sense for us and for our stories and our communities and our and our business intelligence platform, in combination with the mapping features, will allow us to be more storytellers of what's happening in our communities.

 

00;06;58;13 - 00;07;36;03

Rishma Khimji

Fantastic. That's great transparency and accessibility. I'm assuming by accessibility you're not referring to the ADA compliance and things like that, but having your constituents be able to access the data that they're looking for. So one of the reasons I mentioned the ADA compliance is because we have a service direct analogy that we provide assistance on becoming ADA compliant and WCAG compliant for any organization that's looking for assistance.

 

00;07;36;03 - 00;08;08;04

Davood Ghods

There. But that's great. I'm sure you've been dealing with the pandemic, so I think you would agree that adjusting to the pandemic was challenging and has been for many organizations, and now everyone is thinking of what the next major disruption like the pandemic is going to be. And how can we better be prepared for it. So resiliency is a big topic of conversation these days, and we even have a resilience as a service offering. What are some examples of resilience you have seen in the past year and what is the one thing in your opinion organizations should be doing to improve resilience?

 

00;08;08;07 - 00;08;37;22

Rishma Khimji

That is such a fabulous question and it opens the door to so many venues and avenues of answering. So I'm going to try and be as concise as I can. I think the pandemic really taught agencies on how to start building on platforms to be more digitized.

 

00;08;37;24 - 00;09;01;10

Rishma Khimji

I think government agencies in general have put themselves in a more robust position to deal with other disruptions as they come along because they see technology as a partner to the development of services. If we look at the way government services have been in the past, you know, technology was always something to be done, but not always at the table.

 

00;09;01;13 - 00;09;23;10

Rishma Khimji

I think some cities and some agencies do a really good job of partnering technology with their solution building. But I'm seeing that become the norm even more. And that's what's really exciting to me because that's why I came to the San Francisco Police Department was so that I could be at the table to enable technology as a partner to policing.

 

00;09;23;13 - 00;09;50;15

Rishma Khimji

And the way we police. I think we're in the innovation phase now of building new digital tools for automation and for engagement with our communities. I think the pandemic actually built a new system of community outreach, and it was to build a new system in which communities are now looking for those human centric types of decisions that we see within community organizations.

 

00;09;50;17 - 00;10;17;05

Rishma Khimji

When a disruption of the magnitude of the pandemic occurred. I think it really provided us a rare opportunity to rethink and learn and to better prepare us for the future. So what I mean by that is we see more services online. We see more ways of communities being able to engage with their agencies, with their community members, with their government representatives.

 

00;10;17;07 - 00;11;06;21

Rishma Khimji

And it's promoting transparency and participation. I think, however, that the pandemic has really opened up different ways of fostering civic engagement. We saw that with the ways that our communities were trying to get the attention and to hold policymakers accountable for their services in the policing world. We saw that a lot with the various protests that occurred during the pandemic where people were out and trying to show and garner support for better policing.

 

00;11;06;24 - 00;11;37;18

Rishma Khimji

And it's always been a struggle. And I think that the pandemic allowed us to really get a sense of what our communities needed and wanted. And that is so good because social change has been so disruptive in the sense that it is providing us opportunities. I don't think disruption is always a negative thing. I think it's more of an opportunity based system that allows us to look at where and how can we provide better services.

 

00;11;37;18 - 00;12;05;00

Rishma Khimji

And those are part US human centric or human condition issues that governments need to start looking at. And I think technology has a really important role in playing a partners to those types of policies and decision making as we move forward, engaging more with our communities to deal with things such as wellness and health. Workforce management. Information management.

 

00;12;05;00 - 00;12;30;27

Rishma Khimji

We saw that so much in the information era that has come out during the pandemic. So I think the pandemic opened the doors for us to accelerate the way we do business, and I think that's going to continue. And the only way we are going to be better as agencies is that community engagement portal that we're opening in all different spaces face to face and digital.

 

00;12;31;00 - 00;12;57;10

Davood Ghods

Perfect. I completely agree with you. Rishma, Technology modernization is going to be the key in order to stay resilient and be able to get back up. Thank you. My next question is about how we do things like direct technology. We always talk about how we are going to get the project done, but we also ask ourselves, why are we doing what we are doing? What is your why? In other words, what motivates you in your work?

 

00;12;57;13 - 00;13;49;05

Rishma Khimji

So what motivates me the most is this transformation that technology can make in a community's life. I believe in empathy and service delivery. And with empathy, we need to look at equity and equitable distribution of services. That digital engagement component is so reliant on ensuring that we reduce the digital divide so that community members have access to services, whether it is things like MVD, you know, being able to register your car online, getting your ID online to paying your bills and your utility bills to looking for jobs.

 

00;13;49;07 - 00;14;43;10

Rishma Khimji

With the pandemic, we have, you know, remote work and remote school. And how important is ensuring that we have infrastructure to support those needs? That goes back to wellness and health and workforce management in a very remote and virtual capacity. And so for me, I'm so excited and very passionate about ensuring that we're looking at the equitable distribution of services and in policing and in just basic city government organizations, it's important that we look at the whole community as well as the subsets and the different areas where they may not have those equitable services and how do we transition and supporting them and ensuring that they have the ability to engage with the government because

 

00;14;43;10 - 00;15;25;01

Rishma Khimji

we have to ensure that we are able to provide trusting relationships so that they trust the services will be available when they need it the most. And so being part of the San Francisco Police Department in the technology division, it's it's important and so exciting to see the different ways that we are pushing our reform initiatives throughout the communities, knowing that they can access those services in a way that is remote, it is equitable, and it allows greater engagement for the services that they need wonderful empathy and service delivery.

 

00;15;25;02 - 00;15;58;29

Davood Ghods

That's great and I hope it becomes infectious in all organizations, since you would fit well with our model direct technology, which we say we are the human side of tech. Regarding innovation and inspiration, what inspires innovation on your team?

 

00;15;59;02 - 00;16;31;02

Rishma Khimji

I think when you work in the government space, you are very you're very driven towards providing services for the greater good. And when there is a service gap or there is a opportunity to make services better, having a transparent strategic plan, whether it is a six month roadmap or a six year hopeful goal roadmap, it's important to be transparent with that to your team, and it's important to have buy in from the bottom and at the top in the policing world.

 

00;16;31;02 - 00;17;02;29

Rishma Khimji

Right? We are a technology division made up of professionals, civilian. We're not sworn. We do have some sworn officers that are part of the team, but most of us are civilian. And so what I'm really trying to instill in the team is that we need to work on behalf of two customer bases. One, it's our officers that are in the field, and two, it's the communities that we serve.

 

00;17;03;02 - 00;17;35;03

Rishma Khimji

And so when we have a goal or a strategy in mind, we always have to think of how do we make it better for both groups and saying that we know where we want to go is more important, to lay the foundation to say how we're going to get there. So by being transparent of how I want to get there, how command staff wants to get there, what the Chiefs vision is, and then letting the team kind of figure out what is the best way to get there.

 

00;17;35;03 - 00;18;23;29

Rishma Khimji

How do we actually do those kinds of things in ways that are cost effective because we are stewards of taxpayer dollars. But we're also I have to be wary of the fact of community safety and officer safety. And so I thank my staff, my team and even the teams I've worked with in the past. They're so smart and they're so diligent with how they want to get to the end goal that they really look at different ways of doing business and by giving them the opportunity to kind of go through the different scenarios and maybe do proof of concepts, design things that are outside of the box, giving them the breath to do that, giving

 

00;18;23;29 - 00;19;01;00

Rishma Khimji

them the room to figure out different ways of doing things is really important because even though so much technology is very cut and paste, right, we don't always want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to services about safety. We really need to ensure that we are thinking outside the box to find new ways to do that. And my staff has just been so fabulous at really drilling down and saying, How can we do this in a way that maximizes safety for our communities and for our officers without giving up on service?

 

00;19;01;02 - 00;19;29;13

Davood Ghods

That's key. The last thing is, is key without giving up on service. And it's great that you're giving them the space to go and think outside the box and come up with ideas, new ways of doing business, different ways of doing business, more effective ways. Rishma What is something that would surprise people about your background or interests?  

 

00;19;29;13 - 00;20;02;03

Rishma Khimji

Really good question. So I've been thinking about this for a while. So one is I actually never thought I'd get into i.t. I was always hopeful to get into the medical field. I actually started off as a chemical engineering student at the university because I wanted to get into biomedical engineering. Right? And then I just fell in love with technology as a whole and made that my career path.

 

00;20;02;05 - 00;20;34;22

Rishma Khimji

I've been very lucky to work with really great private and public agencies and companies that have just been so wonderful in teaching me how to look at the larger picture. So yeah, the analogy was not really something I was looking to get into, but I was really hoping to get into the medical field. Let's Interesting. Well, the two fields are kind of getting married together right now with telemedicine, right? So there's a lot of technology in medicine, especially because of the pandemic. So, yeah, those two fields are getting closer and closer.

 

00;20;34;25 - 00;20;59;21

Davood Ghods

And my last question is, Rishma, where can people find you and keep tabs on what you're working on? How can people support your work?  

 

00;20;59;21 - 00;21;29;00

Rishma Khimji

Yeah. So the usual is LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I have two accounts on Twitter. One is my professional account. It's S.F. PD, CIO or at S.F. PD. CIO. That kind of goes through some of the policing technology stuff. But I post more prolifically on my personal account, which is at risk kimchi. So I'm I'm really happy if people want to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn. And also I love hearing about people's ideas about things.

 

00;21;29;03 - 00;21;55;11

Rishma Khimji

I think sometimes we get so narrow focused in our field that we, for some that we forget. We just don't see the perspective from the outside looking in. So I love hearing about new ideas and what people think policing and technology should look like.  

 

00;21;55;11 - 00;22;20;21

Davood Ghods

Excellent, excellent. Thank you for offering all those channels where we can reach you. And thank you so much for joining us today. Rishma Thank you to all the listeners out there for joining us as well. We will see you all in the next episode of Food for Thought, where we will shed more light on the human side of tech.

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