Eight states – Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah – will offer residents digital driver’s licenses for Apple devices.

Utah is the latest state to take a shot at creating a mobile Driver’s License for citizens and purports to be the first mobile license to incorporate privacy and security standards, the pilot program announcement states.

The National Association of State CIOs recognized excellence in state technology at all levels at the recently wrapped NASCIO 2017 annual conference. Four awards were announced: the State Technology Innovator Awards, the 2017 NASCIO State IT Recognition Awards, the Thomas M. Jarrett Cybersecurity Scholarship, and the Corporate Longevity Awards.

Government purchasing these days isn’t limited to pens, paper, and copy toner. State governments are looking to purchase drones and other emerging technology, and NASPO ValuePoint is there to help. NASPO ValuePoint, a cooperative purchasing program open to state and local governments, is looking into the future of drones and other NextGen technology.

The Consumer Technology Association released the 2017 Innovation Scorecard, ranking states in four categories: Innovative Champion, Innovative Leader, Innovative Adopter, and Modest Innovator.

Collaboration and a willingness to learn new practices are the best ways to address cybersecurity concerns surrounding cloud computing, according to IT leaders from across the country. Greg Urban, chief operations officer of Maryland, said that a strong core of talent makes a big difference when exploring cloud capabilities.

The Department of Energy is investing $4 million to build electric highway corridors throughout Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho.

CenturyLink has been awarded a NASPO Value Point Cloud Solutions Master Agreement, a contract that will enable the company to sell its cloud solutions to state and local governments as well as authorized political subdivisions, such as school districts, counties, and cities.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to deploy two devices that will collect weather-related transportation data.

As part of NASPO ValuePoint’s Cloud Solutions cooperative procurement, Utah has awarded collab9, a Unified Communications-as-a-Service provider, a Cloud Solutions contract, which enables any of NASPO’s 50 member states, territories, and local governments and public education institutions to purchase the service.