2026 Utah IT Excellence Awards

State of Utah Chief Information Officer Alan Fuller announced the winners of the 2026 Utah IT Excellence Awards at the Utah Digital Government Summit in June. The Utah IT Excellence awards honor emerging leaders and innovative projects in government IT that enable Utah to better meet constituent expectations for services and information and improve operating efficiency. Congratulations to the winners!

Visionary Award: MyUtah, State of Utah

In February of this year, the State of Utah fundamentally transformed how its citizens interact with government with the public launch of MyUtah.

Before MyUtah, finding state services meant navigating a maze of different agency websites, remembering many different passwords, and hoping you landed on the right page. Today, MyUtah serves as a secure, centralized “no wrong door” gateway—consolidating fragmented services into a single, intuitive interface.

With just a single login, residents can now effortlessly interact with multiple agencies, from Motor Vehicles and Natural Resources to Health and Human Services.

What makes MyUtah a true award-winner is its brilliant design and massive impact:

• Privacy-First Innovation: Instead of gathering sensitive data into one vulnerable database, the platform uses a distributed model that securely connects users to services while keeping their personal data safely within the original agency systems.
• Massive, Real-World Reach: This isn’t just a pilot program. With over 2 million active users of Utah services, MyUtah has the potential to support a massive digital ecosystem. 
• Built to Evolve: The platform is dynamic, with new integrations added every single month to meet the changing needs of the public.

And they aren’t stopping there. While the portal currently streamlines executive branch services, the roadmap is already expanding to include many more government services.

By removing the friction of bureaucracy, MyUtah saves Utahns countless hours and creates a truly statewide digital government experience. 

Best Partnership: Courts and BOPP Connect, Utah State Courts and Board of Pardons and Parole

The Courts and BOPP Connect initiative exemplifies the power of cross-agency collaboration. Previously, the process of sharing critical prison commitment information between the Utah State Courts, the Department of Corrections, and the Board of Pardons and Parole was a manual, time-intensive task. Staff spent up to three hours per case, painstakingly reconciling documents—a process that was both labor-intensive and prone to error. By collaborating to create a new, automated system, these teams have transformed the workflow. Utilizing smart data integration, the project has eliminated manual bottlenecks, significantly increasing efficiency and accuracy. This innovation ensures that the justice system works more smoothly and reliably for everyone.

Best Efficiency Improvement: Digital Apostille Modernization, Office of the Lieutenant Governor

What exactly is an Apostille (pronounced ah-puh-steel)? Think of an apostille as an international notary stamp. Normally, if you get a document notarized in your hometown, that notary’s stamp proves the document is real inside the United States. But if you take that same document to outside the country,, the local officials there have no idea who your local notary is. An apostille is a special certificate issued by a government authority that hooks onto your document. It tells foreign countries: “We have checked this document, and we guarantee that the signature and stamp on it are 100% legitimate.”

Utah’s Digital Apostille initiative modernized a paper-heavy government service without increasing state costs. It achieved 80% faster overall processing, instant digital delivery, and a 60% cost reduction for constituents. The project ensures equitable access by eliminating the need for physical travel and expensive international couriers, and it allows constituents to electronically share a single digital Apostille with multiple recipients instead of paying for several paper copies.

As a first-of-its-kind pilot in the United States, Utah went beyond basic digitization to actively shape a new framework for digital apostille issuance. The project serves as a highly innovative, replicable model for other states looking to modernize legally sensitive services without compromising security or accountability.

Best Use of GIS: MSD Assets App, Greater Salt Lake Municipal Services District

Organizations face the monumental task of tracking their assets to pass audits, manage infrastructure, and make smart, data-driven decisions. But the Greater Salt Lake Municipal Services District GIS team didn’t just tackle this challenge—they completely revolutionized it with the MSD Assets App.

Instead of taking the easy route and dumping everything into a single, clunky database, this team took on a massive challenge. They evaluated stormwater systems, sidewalks, streetlights, bridges, buildings, parks, and roads all at the same time. They looked at the entire landscape of the infrastructure and figured out exactly how to upgrade, store, and access that data seamlessly.

The scale of what they accomplished is nothing short of extraordinary:

• Mapping the Invisible: Using innovative tools like GoPro cameras and Mapillary, they captured jurisdiction-wide data for street signs, streetlights, and catch basins—creating robust, highly accurate datasets where virtually no information existed before.
• Automation and Modernization: They automated sidewalk data collection so it can scale effortlessly into the future, and modernized the entire stormwater system for streamlined, instant access.
• Empowering Teams: By updating road data with asphalt age and condition scores, they gave the engineering department the power to review permits faster than ever using dynamic dashboards.
• Massive Financial Impact: They injected thousands of assets and historical values back into the system, giving the finance team the exact tools they need to accurately calculate valuations and track major infrastructure projects.

Ultimately, this project transformed fragmented, buried data into actionable intelligence. It didn’t just improve operational efficiency—it built the literal and digital foundation for the future of our community.

Best Innovative Use of Technology: AI-Driven Storm Drain Detection for Mosquito Abatement, Utah County

Storm drains throughout Utah County harbor ideal conditions for Culex pipiens, the most common mosquito species responsible for transmitting West Nile Virus across the region. These thousands of catch basins and drainage structures create standing water environments where mosquito populations flourish unchecked.

Mosquito control protocols deploy bicycle teams throughout the county to deliver chemical treatment packets directly into storm drains. However, managing tens of thousands of drains distributed across multiple municipalities—with additional infrastructure added continuously through development—created overwhelming operational challenges. The division struggled without comprehensive mapping tools to systematically identify and track every potential breeding location.

Recognizing this critical gap, Mosquito Abatement partnered with technical specialists from the GIS Division within Utah County’s Information Systems Department. The GIS team developed an innovative solution using 1-inch resolution aerial imagery, combined with advanced AI detection capabilities. Multiple AI training runs were conducted using different subsets of the dataset and varying augmentation strategies. This iterative approach allowed for fine-tuning of the model and comparison of results across configurations to identify the most effective setup for detecting small storm drain features in high-resolution imagery. 

The storm drain detection data is integrated into an iOS application used by field technicians. This app allows them to easily visualize the precise locations of storm drains throughout Utah County, streamlining their daily operations and improving treatment efficiency.