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LA County Parks CIO to Offer Insights

Mohammed Al Rawi, chief information officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, will be the speaker for a Techwire virtual briefing from 2 to 3 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 10.

Mohammed Al Rawi, chief information officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, will be the speaker for a Techwire virtual briefing from 2 to 3 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 10. 

Al Rawi is responsible for leading the development, modernization, assessment and ongoing analysis of information technology, information security governance, data management and reporting systems. He provides vision and leadership in the development and implementation of technology infrastructure supporting the department’s 2,700-employee workforce. Before joining Parks and Recreation, he served as Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ deputy for technology and innovation. For more than six years, he provided oversight and policy analysis for information technology projects covering 37 county departments.

While serving the Board of Supervisors, Al Rawi established a countywide plan to modernize more than 100 mission-critical application systems that were built on obsolete and outdated platforms. Later he led the effort to establish a consolidated, cost-efficient countywide data center. Starting in 2017, the new enterprise data center will consolidate most of the county’s current 47 data centers, saving the county over $200 million in construction costs alone and more in hardware, software and energy costs. Al Rawi, in coordination with the county chief information security officer, established IT security standards to protect health and sensitive data throughout the county and third-party contractors’ facilities and made the county’s wealth of data open to the public.

Prior to joining the county of Los Angeles, Al Rawi worked for eight years as the technical director for the Los Angeles Times' news bureau in Baghdad. In that capacity, Al Rawi oversaw IT operations for dozens of journalists covering the Iraq War and its aftermath. In 2006, the Times recognized him with an award for Best Support Staff.

In addition to a passion for auto racing, Al Rawi is a computer scientist who enjoys coding and application development on his spare time.