At Hawaii Information Consortium, our goal is to bring government services to the people. We do this by partnering with over 95% of all government agencies in Hawaii, who work with us to bring online services to the citizens of Hawaii. We offer public facing, easy-to-use, always-on internet services, most of which are completed at NO cost to the State of Hawaii or its taxpayers. The genius of our self-funded model, and how we are actually able to deliver on the promise of fast-tracked, customer-responsive eGovernment solutions, is that we pay attention to our partner's constituent populations and actively provide services that they need in the way that they need it. It is very easy for our partners to work with us because we have made it clear that we are looking out for their best interests and we work on solutions to their most painful problems. This makes us the best partner they have ever had.
In 2014, we received 11 national and local awards recognizing our services created in cooperation with our partner, State/County Agencies. Highlights include being honored with the prestigious Best of the Web Overall Winner - which represents the best government website in the nation.
As of October 31, 2014, we processed over $1.6 Billion in payments for our partners and launched 11 new services, including our first application with the City & County of Honolulu for absentee voters and the nations first attempt at gamifying government through my.hawaii.gov. 17 applications had major upgrades or rewrites during this reporting period. We also launched 4 new websites all developed using WordPress and 1 mobile app.
Throughout 2014, HIC provided over 23,000 man-hours of labor to our partners at no-cost by leveraging HIC's self-funded portal contract. We also provided avoided cost savings of over $5 million.
We see more opportunities to save our partners at least $10 - 15 million in the near future.
Since 2012, HIC has contributed more than 800 hours to various volunteer efforts and we remain steadfast in our commitment to our company culture and the well being of our staff. This year, one staff member was lucky enough to partner with Google and the Department of Land & Natural Resources to help map hiking trails on Oahu using the Google Trekker panoramic camera. In 2013, HIC was the recipient of the 2013 Team of the Year award for our volunteer work and and our staff continues to collectively and individually take part in countless fitness and volunteer activities, including: weekly tennis and basketball games, runs, swims, beach cleanups, triathlons and lesser known activities such as escrima and running 100 mile mountain foot races. For the past 4 years running, HIC has received a Best Places to Work award including separate awards for being the fittest and most family friendly employer. We came in at number one again this year and we hope to continue our reign in 2015.
Looking towards the future we look forward to the release of many more services including an electronic Medical Marijuana Registry, Vital Records System, Business Monitoring, as well as the opportunity to secure the renewal of our portal contract for another 3 years.