—Support Drone Research During National Fire Prevention Week Oct. 8–14, 2017—

Company Website: https://www.colorado.gov/
DENVER -- (Business Wire)

The Center of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting (CoE) announces the launch of its online support application, which makes it easier for the public to support its critical role by monetary or in-kind donations. The CoE’s mission is to protect Colorado’s citizens, land, and resources by researching and testing innovative aerial firefighting techniques. Donations will support testing unmanned aircraft systems in public safety.

Why does the CoE need public support? Colorado House Bill 17-1070 requires the Center of Excellence to perform a study and to operate a pilot program to study the use of drones in public safety. The goals are to help local agencies identify the most appropriate and cost-effective platforms and sensor packages for their missions as well as develop policy and procedure. The bill allows the CoE to accept gifts, grants, and donations to fund the study and pilot program.

“We estimate that a robust pilot project and study of most benefit to Colorado’s citizens and the public safety community will cost about a $1 million,” said Center of Excellence Director, Melissa Lineberger. “We are excited to offer convenient and safe payment options to support such an important program. The donations we receive will be vital to the study’s success.”

To build a secure website, the CoE worked with the state’s partners for digital government services—the State Internet Portal Authority and Colorado Interactive. The partnership’s key offering to government entities is a robust payment processing system, which meets the highest security level set by the Payment Card Industry.

About Colorado Interactive

Colorado Interactive (CI) is the team behind the official website of the state of Colorado (http://www.colorado.gov) and is overseen by the Statewide Internet Portal Authority. The portal operates through a public-private partnership between the state and CI to help Colorado government entities web-enable their services. CI builds, operates, maintains, and markets Colorado.gov and is part of digital government firm NIC's (NASDAQ: EGOV) family of companies.

About SIPA

Established in 2004 by the Colorado General Assembly, the Statewide Internet Portal Authority (SIPA) is a self-funded government organization created to be Colorado's single most comprehensive delivery channel for electronic government (eGovernment) services. SIPA strives to accelerate the adoption of efficient, effective electronic government services by placing more government information and services online to benefit the citizens of Colorado.

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC Inc. (NASDAQ: EGOV) is celebrating 25 years as the nation’s premier provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government interactions more accessible for everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies has developed a library of more than 13,000 digital government services for more than 5,500 federal, state, and local government agencies. Among these solutions is the ground-breaking digital government personal assistant, Gov2Go, delivering citizens personalized reminders and a single access point for government interactions. More information is available at www.egov.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171003005278/en/

Contacts:

Colorado Interactive for www.Colorado.Gov
Monica Segura-Bunch, 303-534-3468 x115
Cell: 303-526-8491
Marketing, Communications & Customer Care Manager
Monica.Segura-Bunch@www.Colorado.Gov

Source: Colorado Interactive