Newport News, Va., recently appointed Hassan Janjua to serve as the city’s inaugural CIO, and as such, he is empowered to shape the city’s IT strategy.
Janjua started as CIO in February, heading up an IT department that had previously been led by a director of IT — and, he said, endowed with the ability to influence the direction the organization is headed to make it “future-ready.” To do so, he is focused on cybersecurity, workforce development and emerging technologies like AI.
The city is making significant investments in technology, specifically in security. When he became CIO, Janjua was given $6 million in funding to support cybersecurity, he said, noting that city officials are especially focused on ransomware protection for endpoints. For state and local governments, the average cost of recovering from a ransomware incident was $2.83 million in 2024…