Providence Technology Group

New technologies play a central role in longtime Mayor Christopher Cabaldon’s vision for making his city the best place to raise a family or find talented workers. In 2016, West Sacramento voters easily approved a 0.25 percent sales tax hike that was allocated to, among other things, enhancing internet access and “the use of smart technologies.” With the public on board to improve government services through new uses of technology, Democratic Mayor Christopher Cabaldon says it was an opportunity to partner with startups and entrepreneurs to test new ideas that would be hard to test in a larger urban area and also stay open to the idea that the city might find and solve some new problems that officials didn’t even know they had. Now, he says he wants West Sacramento ...[Read More]

SACRAMENTO, CA – Today, the Brookings Institution released an independent assessment of the health of the economy within the six-county Sacramento region at the Regional Futures Forum held in Carmichael. The Forum gathered the Sacramento region’s elected officials and executives from city, county and non-governmental organizations for the first time in nearly a decade to learn together and plan for a more economically prosperous and inclusive region. Earlier this year, the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Valley Vision, Sacramento Region Business Association, and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments partnered to engage the nationally recognized Brookings Institution to conduct a market assessment of the six-county Sacramento region. Th...[Read More]

For Peter Liebert, California’s chief information security officer, making cybersecurity a key piece in everything the state does is a huge part of how to strengthen the state’s information security posture. Liebert, in an April video interview with StateScoop, points to the state Department of Technology’s Vision 2020 plan. One of the key pillars of which, he says, revolves around cybersecurity. “One of the three key pillars [of the Vision 2020 plan] is something called secure delivery — and the idea is that everything we do we want to make sure that we deliver it securely and that’s how we focus our efforts,” Liebert says. Keep reading this article on State Scoop

Last week, we heard that Sacramento did not make “the cut” for Amazon’s 2nd headquarters.   An official with the organization charged with recruiting business to the area, the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, believes that Sacramento needs to “focus on providing more digital-skills training.”  This is not a bad idea, but how will the region make this happen in a meaningful way that generates new business and jobs? It seems that most technology jobs in the Sacramento area require at least 5 years of relevant experience.  While many jobs in technology provide an excellent salary, most new tech workers don’t have 5 years of experience and will need to start near the base of a career ladder.  As they learn how to apply their skills in a way that provides value for their employers, they can...[Read More]

In its continued pursuit of becoming the nation’s next Silicon Valley, the City of Sacramento has announced it is searching for applicants for $1 million in innovation grants. Open for applications for the second consecutive year — starting April 9 — through an annual economic development program called the Rapid Acceleration, Innovation and Leadership in Sacramento, or RAILS, grants will be awarded for educational and training programs encouraging entrepreneurship, civic tech companies seeking to relocate or expand, and incubator programs that support job growth and bolster the local tech economy. The latest funding round, which Democratic Mayor Darrell Steinberg said will help “connect the disconnected” is a key component of the California city’s desire to transfo...[Read More]

Imagine you’re an emergency room doctor staring down at a non-responsive patient. You open the electronic health record to learn about her history, and all you find is a record from an ICU stay in your hospital four years ago. You assume she has probably had treatment since then, but you have no idea what type. You try calling the phone numbers listed for the patient’s primary care provider and the patient’s son, but it is 2 AM, and neither is answering. You need information now. What you don’t know is that just 12 days ago, this patient was admitted to a hospital only blocks away. That hospital ran the full gamut of relevant tests, prescribed several medications, scheduled follow-up appointments with various specialists, and developed a comprehensive care plan. So you unknowingly order th...[Read More]

A diverse crowd of Sacramentans turned out to SMUD HQ on Wednesday, March 30 for Pro Talk Series: Tech in Sacramento, organized by CAAPS. The event featured leaders in government, economic development and business discussing the future of technology in Sacramento. The event was part of a planned series of community discussions that will focus on technology and economic growth in the Greater Sacramento Region, including: Technolgy and Business Technology companies and  growth in the Greater Sacramento Region Agricultural technology Technology & economic development in the Greater Sacramento Region Keep reading this article on STARTUPSAC

Thinking about making a change to your website or app?  But will the change be better or worse?  What do you do?  Determining if a change in software is good or bad is done as a controlled experiment called A/B testing.   Our guest writer, Leona Henryson is a seasoned blogger and UX designer and discusses A/B testing in this article. A beginner’s guide to A/B testing To be at your most effective, you need to know whether a change you’ve made is actually beneficial or not. Now you can simply guess, assume, or judge based on your own observations. All of those choices come with problems, however. And that is that they’re not very accurate. A much better way to know what’s actually going on is by comparing what you had with what you have and seeing how the numbers compare. This will give you ...[Read More]

The other night was an amazing workshop for the packed crowd at 801 K Street with incredible insights into building constructive relationships with investors.  So much was covered it is hard to do a summary that does the session justice. The discussion was particularly lively, with lots of questions from the audience. Matt van Leeuwen set the stage with a soup-to-nuts review of what investor are interested in during a fund raise and what terms they may seek in a Term Sheet and the final documents.  He gave a good perspective on what is negotiable–and what is not. He also warned about terms that can turn out very unfavorably for startups. Matt discussed different types of financing options for companies, terms startups might hear,  standard terminology and special types of agreements that y...[Read More]

One of the stated goals of turning Sacramento into a hub of innovation is to build out innovation districts within the city, expanding the revitalization that’s happening in downtown and midtown into other areas of the city that can become clusters of innovation. One of those areas that is on the cusp of some major new developments is the Power Inn Alliance improvement district. The district is located in the southeastern quadrant of the city of Sacramento and is home to over 10,000 businesses that create over 29,000 direct jobs and produce over $3.2 billion in annual economic output. It serves as the city’s manufacturing core with over 62% of the city’s manufacturing base taking place in the 6.2 mile area. Keep reading this article on STARTUPSAC  

“Customizing” your resume simply means tailoring it to match a specific job description. Customizing is now a must because most large employers and recruiting companies store resumes in an ATS (applicant tracking system), which uses keywords to retrieve relevant resumes for specific jobs. Once a human reviewer pulls relevant resumes, studies show that they will spend fewer than 10 seconds looking at it before deciding whether or not you are qualified for the opportunity. There are two main reasons to customize: To ensure your resume passes the critical keyword test. You’ll add appropriate keywords so that the employer’s ATS recognizes that you are a fit with the job’s requirements. With the right keywords in your resume, the ATS should make your resume visible to the people doing the resum...[Read More]

If you look out of the window today, it may be a bit overcast, but in a few months, the sun will be bearing down on the Sacramento region with promises to scorch the valley.  We know those 100-degree days are not too far off.  Solar technology seems to innovate regularly.   Sacramento would seem to be an ideal place to capitalize on solar power, so why don’t we see more solar panels installed on our neighbor’s roofs, much less our own roofs? Google’s Project Sunroof can help you determine if solar is a good option for your wallet and home.  Depending on your current electricity rates, solar power may not be a cost-effective strategy for you.  When we ran the Project Sunroof calculator for our own homes, it gave us 17-year payback periods – that’s a long time to wait for your investment to ...[Read More]