California’s Department of Technology launched the Office of Digital Innovation and Technology Engagement to promote civic engagement, encourage data-driven decisions, and develop and unify policy and usage standards for its data. The first initiative will be the California Innovation Lab, designed as a “tech habitat” for government agencies to design and test new open source technologies.

We profiled Waze, a crowdsourced traffic and navigation mobile app that has begun to partner with city and state governments. The partnerships give governments a cost-effective way to gather real-time traffic data, while giving users of Waze updated information about road closures and construction.

Baltimore’s Health Department is testing the usage of data to prevent senior citizens from falling. The city received a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the goal is to reduce falls by one-third in the next three years. Baltimore City Health Department first plans to build a stronger platform for data collection and sharing, so that data and responses can be available in real time. Then, they hope to analyze the collected data to find trends or patterns, which can then help inform tailored initiatives to prevent future falls.

We discussed LinkNYC, New York City’s new superfast public WiFi and its self-sustaining model, which is funded by revenue from ads on each “Link.” The ad space is particularly valuable because ad companies have access to user information through the “Links,” allowing them to target ads more directly. Privacy concerns have been raised, but LinkNYC’s transparent, customer-first privacy policy could dissuade many of the fears if implemented correctly.

Results for America and Bloomberg Philanthropies announced that former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and former New York City Chief Analytics Officer Mike Flowers will serve as 2016 What Works Cities Senior Fellows. Mayor Nutter will serve as an advisor to current What Works Cities mayors and provide strategic support focused on community engagement efforts. Mike Flowers will oversee the new Analytics Kick Start Program run by the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins.

CNET interviewed Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx about the Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge, which plans to award up to $50 million to mid-sized cities using data-driven ideas to improve transportation. The challenge’s popularity surprised even the DOT: 77 cities have applied (the full list can be found here) and 300 private companies have expressed interest in partnering with a city. Five finalists will be announced at the South by Southwest Festival in March.

Governing wrote about Massachusetts’s use of data analytics to prevent drug overdoses. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has begun using analytics to sift through large datasets, ranging from painkiller prescriptions to previous overdose deaths, to predict where overdoses may occur in the future. With the help of these predictions and analytics, Massachusetts is able to make more informed decisions about drug abuse resources and spending, along with targeting policies to areas of specific need.