City of Thousand Oaks Wins ‘Best of California’ Award for Cloud Apps Built by College Intern

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, May 30, 2012 — The City of Thousand Oaks won the 2012 “Best of California” Green IT award yesterday at the Government Technology Conference (GTC) West for several cloud database applications built by a volunteer intern for less than 3 percent of the $370,000 it would have cost for traditional development. The award, given by the Center for Digital Government, recognized the City’s success creating the state’s first fully automated Green Business Certification Program, as well as their Recycling Permit and Grant Management systems.

Enlisted by the City to create the programs despite little IT experience, University of Southern California graduate student Justin Baker used Caspio’s cloud database to develop several web applications that allow over 4,000 local businesses and organizations to apply for city environmental programs that help them receive grants, reduce their carbon footprint, implement energy efficiency and water conservation upgrades, and buy green products.

“When I applied to the City to be a volunteer, I was very interested in local government and technology, and wanted to develop programs from the ‘ground up’ and see them through,” said Baker. “I researched several cloud vendors with the idea that we couldn’t hire consultants or programmers, and found Caspio was easy-to-use and affordable.”

As a result, Baker was hired on as a full-time City employee and is currently replicating the initial project’s success across other City programs.

“Being able to reduce program costs, improve public services, and promote environmental values is a hallmark of good government. We’ve been able to automate systems, accelerate processes, and give citizens a better government experience,” said John Brooks, City Environmental Programs Senior Analyst. “This award shows what government agencies can accomplish with innovative cloud technology in spite of reduced resources.”

Developing these programs with traditional programming, consulting, and IT maintenance would have cost over $370,000. Using cloud computing, the City was able to create these applications for less than 3 percent of traditional development costs, plus reduce paper usage by 95 percent. For businesses certified through the City’s Green Business Program, a reduction in energy use by 25 percent, water consumption by 15 percent, and a 10 percent reduction in CO2 emissions are expected.

For more information on how the City of Thousand Oaks utilized cloud applications to achieve these benefits, visit Caspio’s blog: Intern Creates “Best of California” Award-Winning Cloud Apps.

“Caspio congratulates the City of Thousand Oaks on receiving this prestigious award,” said Frank Zamani, founder and CEO of Caspio.”We’re proud to serve as the foundation for the City’s green programs and look forward to continuing our partnership as they expand their cloud-based government programs and systems.”

Visit Caspio’s website to learn more about cloud solutions for government.

About Caspio

As a leader in cloud database and platform-as-a-service technology, Caspio (caspio.com) helps tech-savvy business users shrink development time of web and mobile apps, forms, reports and widgets from weeks to hours, and from thousands of dollars to a small monthly fee. Caspio’s intuitive database and point-and-click platform require no coding skills and is used in over 500,000 apps for government agencies, America’s largest newspaper websites, Fortune-500 companies and thousands of businesses around the world. A free 14-day trial is available at caspio.com.

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