Rising IT Star Award for Clare County Council

Bhavesh accepted the award for his work in developing a digitalised system for compiling lifeguard statistics in real time.

The lifeguard digitisation project, which was funded under the Public Service Innovation Fund from the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, allows for faster analysis and better decision-making, enabling more strategic resource allocation to areas of greatest need. The system has the potential to be rolled out nationwide and was shortlisted for four different accolades at the award ceremony on Thursday, October 10 last.

Originally from India, Bhavesh spent 14 years working in Dubai after graduating. After applying for a GIS role on publicjobs.ie, he was assigned to a position with Clare County Council, and along with his family, moved to their new home in Ennis almost two years ago.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the lifeguard digitisation project, Mr Patadiya said, “The project started after the environment team asked the IT department if they could develop a programme that would convert the old paper-based recording system to a digital one. We designed an android-based app and created a dashboard for the supervisors of all beaches to record and monitor data in a more efficient and co-ordinated way.”

Lifeguards can now report incidents in real-time, allowing for faster response times and more effective management of beach safety. The digital dashboard provides supervisors with immediate access to data, enabling informed decisions quickly and efficiently, and ultimately enhancing the safety and well-being of beachgoers.

Looking to the future, Bhavesh and the GIS team in Clare County Council continue to develop new programmes that will provide digital dashboards or surveys for other local authority services.

There are new GIS map-based interactive dashboards in development in the areas of housing and planning and new dashboards are already in use by the HR and Physical Development sections. These projects will all be scalable and applicable to other service delivery areas and other local authorities around the country. Clare County Council was the first council in Ireland to develop an end-to-end digital system of record keeping for its lifeguards and is already in discussions with other local authorities to share this new innovation.

“The majority of local authorities use ARCGIS so there is no reason that this project and the other projects under development cannot be rolled out nationally. We want to continue to use technology to enable more informed decision-making and efficient resource allocation, thus saving money and carbon emissions by eliminating paper-based records”, added Bhavesh.

Congratulating Bhavesh on his win, Chief Executive of Clare County Council, Pat Dowling, said, “I am delighted that Bhavesh’s innovation, creativity and skills have been recognised and commended in such a public manner and he is a deserving winner of this award. This work has the potential to change the way data is gathered and reported across a number of sectors, and provide a new way of working for many departments.”

Page last reviewed: 16/10/24

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