Five years ago, in the early days of the pandemic, U.S. Digital Response came together with a simple mission: help governments deliver digital services when communities needed them most. As we wrap up honoring our fifth year of partnering with governments, we're humbled to recognize the government teams and civic tech champions who embody that same spirit of service.
The 2025 Digital Service Champions Awards celebrate excellence in digital government modernization. But this isn't just a USDR story, it's a community story. Nearly 20 civic tech leaders from across the ecosystem came together as our selection committee, reviewing nominations from governments and individuals nationwide. These awards recognize outstanding work happening everywhere, whether or not teams have partnered with USDR.
At a moment when effective digital services matter more than ever, these awards are our rallying cry for modernizing how government serves communities.
Government Awards
Seed Award
For solutions that grew to help multiple jurisdictions
Winner: New Jersey Department of Labor / NJ AI Assistant
New Jersey DOL leveraged their state's AI Assistant as a translation tool to create accessible content in plain English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole for critical benefit programs. By co-creating plain language glossaries tested with workers and implementing translation quality rubrics, they dramatically improved translation accuracy and saw significant increases in Spanish-speaking applicants and follow-through rates. Their intentionally scalable approach provides a model other states can replicate to serve all populations.
Speed of Need Award
For rapid delivery projects benefitting the public
Winner: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania / HR1 Digital Response Initiative
Pennsylvania is responding to an abrupt federal mandate with a modern, product-driven approach that brings together a wide range of partners across government, civic tech, and the private sector. By mobilizing quickly to visit county assistance offices, conduct stakeholder interviews, and pursue deep co-design with caseworkers and beneficiaries to improve both user and workforce experience, they are delivering multiple prototypes with the goal of improving the state’s SNAP error rate and avoiding future costs—proving that the government can move fast while building for long-term sustainability.
Demos not Memos Award
For exemplary agile methodology and iteration
Winner (Tied):
1. Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care / Educator Portal and Credential Management System for EEC
The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) is building a new Educator Portal using plain language, user experience best practices, and conditional logic to reduce cognitive load on applicants. Through iterative design for various educator types and accessibility testing with third-party vendors, they created an experience where beta users confidently navigated applications. Their streamlined deployment process enables faster, gradual releases that deliver value sooner and minimize risk.
2. Arlington County, VA / “Employee #10” Historical Proportional Forecast
Arlington County ran a practical, low-friction AI pilot using an Excel-based forecasting model built from five past primaries. By using conversational prompts that respected privacy constraints and running the model live during early voting, they adjusted operational decisions in real-time. After certification, they validated the approach and documented it so other small localities can replicate this low-cost, human-reviewed analytic method without complex tools.
Innovation in Constraints Award
For creative solutions despite limitations
Winner: City of Portland - Digital Services / Permitting website user experience
Portland's Digital Services team transformed their permitting website with limited resources, replacing dense, jargon-heavy content with clear, approachable information that helps residents plan projects confidently. Using a shared design system, reusable content architecture, and interactive project guides, they created a new information experience that reduces frustration, builds public trust, improves accessibility, and accelerates the customer’s project timeline. Their collaborative approach models how other teams can improve public services.
Cross-Jurisdiction Collaboration Award
For outstanding multi-jurisdictional partnerships
Winner: Colorado Digital Service / Colorado Public Utilities Commission / Colorado Energy Office / Office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis – The Colorado Energy Savings Navigator
Colorado's Energy Savings Navigator demonstrates ambitious multi-stakeholder cooperation, bringing together government entities and external partners to pool resources and coordinate efforts. With impressive leadership buy-in and early impact metrics, they've built an equitable, multilingual platform focused on widespread access to energy benefits. What’s more, they designed for replication from the start, with at least one other state already recreating the model and more showing interest.
Individual Awards
High Collaboration Volunteer Award
For volunteers who excel at bringing teams together
Winner: Julie DeMello
Through years of work on USDR election projects, Julie has driven significant, sustained outcomes while building strong partnerships and genuine relationships with government teams. Rather than just performing work for partners, Julie builds their capacity to do it themselves, transferring knowledge and empowering teams in ways that create transformative results lasting well beyond any single project.
Above and Beyond Volunteer Award
For volunteers who consistently exceed expectations
Winner: Leon Wong
Leon is a trusted and valued USDR volunteer whose commitment and values shine through across an impressive diversity of projects. Leon consistently shows up with full dedication, stepping into whatever role is needed and consistently exceeding expectations in ways that delight both his teams and government partners.
Building Scalable Systems Volunteer Award
For volunteers who create resources others can build upon
Winner: Anna Hoffman
Anna has made meaningful, sustained contributions across multiple projects by focusing on what makes the entire organization stronger: improving internal capacity, enhancing the volunteer experience, and building systems and structures that help USDR, its volunteers, and government partners scale their work for the long term.
Civic Tech Champion Award
Celebrating civic tech professionals advancing the ecosystem
Winner: Laura Flannery
Through their work at CivicActions supporting the VA, Laura has made services more accessible by focusing not just on project deliverables, but on training and culture change that prevents accessibility barriers from reaching production. Laura creates reusable resources, mentors colleagues on her team and within government partner teams, and demonstrates consistent leadership in centering accessibility and equity in ways that create lasting positive change.
The Andrew Hyder Government Service Improvement Award
Honoring federal employees committed to improving public services
Winner: Leilani Martínez
A long-time leader in the federal government, Leilani led a transformational benefits delivery initiative with equity and accessibility at its core and strong impact metrics to prove it. Beyond individual projects, Leilani advocated for language and cultural relevance as core principles of digital design and built a wider multilingual community of practice across the government. She consistently mentors and recognizes the contributions of others, embodying Andrew Hyder's legacy of using technology to connect people to the services and benefits they need.
Join Us for the Celebration
We're hosting a virtual awards ceremony on December 2nd from 12-1 PM PT / 3-4 PM ET to celebrate these incredible awardees. You'll hear directly from the winners, learn about their groundbreaking work, and connect with the civic tech community working to make government services work better for everyone. What’s more, we’re thrilled that Jennifer Pahlka, USDR co-founder and author of Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better, and Nikhil Deshpande, chief digital and AI officer at the State of Georgia, will be joining us to share their thoughts on why effective digital services are needed now more than ever.
Whether you're a government leader, civic tech volunteer, funder, or simply someone who believes in better digital services, we'd love to have you there.
Register for the December 2nd ceremony
These awards are proof of what's possible when dedicated people work together to modernize government digital services. Let's celebrate that together.
See you on December 2nd! 🎉
