"Future Tech Challenge" Award and Amazon Web Services Prize

Date: 15-12-2021

Mayo County Council will team up with project lead Monaghan and eight other local authorities in working with tech giant Amazon Web Services in the roll-out of online services for Mayo’s citizens.

MyCoCo was the winning submission of the Department of Expenditure and Reform (DPER) “Future Tech Challenge” having been previously shortlisted from a large group of competitors.  The Future Tech Challenge is a pilot initiative between Irish public service bodies and seeks to solve public service challenges by encouraging technology adoption and innovation.  The winners secure a prize of services amounting to €100,000 with an industry leader, and work with that industry partner to develop their winning idea.

Local authorities offer more than 1,000 unique services to the public with 600 of these services common across the sector.  Many of the services are provided using paper-based forms, payments are made by cheque and the applicant has very low visibility into the progress of their application.  This project will develop MyCoCo – an online platform to provide these diverse services.

MyCoCo will be like the ‘Amazon’ for local authority services.  Citizens, businesses and organisations can set up an account, browse the service catalogue, request a service, add to a basket, make a payment, and track progress.  MyCoCo will integrate with the MyGOVID and Digital Postbox solutions in offering our citizens a secure government-wide single sign-on for accessing local authority services.

The MyCoCo project will provide local authorities full visibility of service offerings and provide baseline metrics that can then be used for key performance indicators.  MyCoCo will also facilitate a sustainable and cohesive office based and remote working environment providing standardised approaches resulting in reduced costs and optimised service delivery.  MyCoCo is a transformative solution that will provide a better customer experience and increase the efficiency of our service models.