Business Innovation Conference

Hardik Bhatt's appointment as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) was announced by Mayor Richard M Daley in February 2006. Mr. Bhatt is also the Commissioner of the Department of Business and Information Services, the City's primary technology planning, implementation and maintenance organization. As the Chief Information Officer and the Commissioner of the Department of Business and Information Services (BIS), Mr. Bhatt's role is protect City's existing investment in Information Technology while identifying and implementing new and innovative technology solutions that deliver efficiencies in service to the citizens of the City of Chicago.

Specifically, Mr. Bhatt strives to implement Mayor Daley's vision of a city government that benefits from an assimilation of best practices from both the public sector and the private industry by raising the level of service provided to citizens, businesses and tourists. As the CIO of the City of Chicago, Mr. Bhatt oversees several Technology Implementations, Mobile Solutions and Information Sharing projects. This primarily includes improvements in collection and sharing of information across various City agencies and dissemination within agencies and to the general public. Also of high priority are streamlining City's various business processes to attract qualified firms to partner with the City, integration of various enterprise systems such as for Revenue, Finance and Procurement, Human Resources, Inspection and Permitting, and Customer Service Requests. He is also responsible for implementing a Geographic Information Services (GIS) that provides digital maps, photographs and up-to-date data on all property City-wide. Furthermore, Mr. Bhatt ‘s objective will be to make as many services available as possible to the public via the City's web site, www.cityofchicago.org and continue to evaluate options for city-wide wireless broadband connectivity.

In addition, Bhatt oversees the maintenance, upkeep and performance of the City's Information technology assets comprising 10,000+ personal computers, a wide area network and telecom lines that encompass more than 100 City offices and locations.

Prior to taking charge of BIS, Mr. Bhatt was working as a Deputy Director in City’s newly formed Traffic Management Authority at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, where he was responsible for innovative planning and technological solutions to mitigate traffic congestion in the City of Chicago. Prior to that, Mr. Bhatt managed Software Development at the Chicago Police Department, where he led the development of ICLEAR (Illinois Citizens and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system. Before joining the city government in 2003, Mr. Bhatt has worked for private sector companies for 10 years, including at Oracle Corporation and Tata Consultancy Services (India) as a technology consultant.

Mr. Bhatt received an Executive MBA in 2005 from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Science from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.