We have the government to thank for the internet, GPS and unmanned aerial systems. Much of the machine learning and advanced analytics powering the data-driven economy are made possible by government-funded research. And agencies themselves are being transformed by new technologies and innovative ways of weaving IT into critical missions.

Public-sector tech, in other words, is far cooler than the government often gets credit for. These awards aim to give these innovators the credit they deserve. 

The Public Sector Innovation category focuses on transformative tech that is truly reinventing government -- at the federal, state and local levels. That potentially mission-critical impact can stem from a new technology itself or from the innovative ways established tech is being leveraged to make government function better.

Congratulations to all of this year's winners:

• ACM: Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, and ML/AI Platform
  Internal Revenue Service
• Air Force Visible, Accessible, Understandable, Linked, & Trustworthy (VAULT) Data Platform
  U.S. Air Force
• Army Vantage
  U.S. Army
• Budget Line of Business Apportionment Manager
  Department of Education
• Cloud-based Disaster Recovery Implementation for Integrated Eligibility System
  Oregon Department of Human Services
• Computational Storage
  Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Connect2LACity Work from Home Platform
  City of Los Angeles
• Defensive Cyber Operations Resource for Updates, Innovation, and Development (DRUID)
  U.S. Army
• DOL IT Platform
  Department of Labor
• DOR Nudge Notice Proof of Concept
  Pennsylvania Department of Revenue
• Entity Authentication and Authorization for Everyone (EAZE)
  Social Security Administration
• Health Assessment Lite Operations (HALO)
  U.S. Army
• HHS Protect Platform
  Department of Health and Human Services
• Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data Browser
  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Leveraging IoT for Increased Flood Protection
  Town of Cary, North Carolina
• Modernization through SD-WAN
  General Services Administration
• MyPerformance
  Kentucky Division of Technology Services
• NewPay Payroll/Time & Attendance Modernization
  General Services Administration
• RPA/Intelligence Automation Services at NASA Shared Services Center
  NASA
• Telework Tracking Application
  Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services
• Transforming 911 for Safer Communities
  California Office of Emergency Services

Profiles for each winner will be published in early November.