We are excited to announce a new strategic partnership between the Digital Innovation Collaborative Exchange (DICE) and Western Michigan University (WMU) for the Spring 2026 semester. This collaboration brings a fresh, academic perspective to our mission of shared digital services through WMU’s “PADN 4700 –…
This is the final article in a series on AI Sovereignty and the Knowledge Layer. The earlier pieces explored the risk of cognitive lock-in and sketched an architecture for a sovereign stack. What remains is the least theoretical question of…
Across Michigan, a quiet shift is underway. County clerks are testing chatbots. Assessors are exploring automation. Planners are wondering if artificial intelligence can finally make sense of zoning codes written before color TV. The Digital Innovation Collaborative Exchange (DICE), in…
A National Call to Action The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) recently released a major report—Bringing AI to Main Street: Maximizing Artificial Intelligence’s Positive Impact on Municipal Economies—that shifts the national conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) from Silicon Valley…
In local government, we say collaboration is key. We say it at retreats. We say it in strategic plans. We say it into microphones at ribbon cuttings for community broadband projects that took four years and six grant cycles to…
Every local government leader frets about property tax rates, millages, and the perennial “what will this mean for the voters?” question. But there’s another tax no one votes on, no one debates at a public hearing, and no one even…
In a quiet corner of Southwest Michigan, the sort of place where road names double as genealogical records, something unexpected is unfolding. Amid the cornfields and committee meetings, a pair of rural governments are attempting what might best be described…
