Management

GSA Launches New Service to Help Agencies Transform IT

New Technology Transformation Service from GSA aims to serve as a tech innovation hub inside the federal government.

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Phil Goldstein is a former web editor of the CDW family of tech magazines and a veteran technology journalist. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their animals: a dog named Brenna, and two cats, Grady and Princess.

The General Services Administration is rolling out a new service to help federal agencies upgrade and improve their IT, and in the process is solidifying the place of 18F, GSA’s digital services unit, into the federal bureaucracy.

The new service, called the Technology Transformation Service, will house 18F, the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, and the Presidential Innovation Fellows program. GSA aims to be the one-stop-shop for agencies looking to improve their technology, and the new service will be the home of new, emerging technology initiatives at GSA.

“Improving technology services is one of the federal government’s biggest shared challenges,” GSA Administrator Denise Turner Roth said in a statement. “By creating the Technology Transformation Service, we are demonstrating our long-term commitment to help agencies create accessible, efficient, user-centered and secure technology.”

Turner Roth named Phaedra Chrousos, the former associate administrator of the Office of Citizen Services, Innovative Technologies and 18F, as the new service’s first commissioner. Aaron Snow, currently executive director of 18F, will serve as deputy commissioner. 18F was created in May 2014, and uses agile development processes to collaborate with agencies to rapidly build and deploy digital tools and services.

The new service builds on the model of existing service lines at GSA. “Much as the Public Buildings Service and Federal Acquisition Service meet our partner agencies’ needs for real estate and acquisition, the Technology Transformation Service will help agencies navigate how to build, buy, and share user-centered and emerging technology solutions,” Turner Roth said in a blog post. “This new service will provide both the foundation for our government’s digital transformation and also partner with other agencies to assist them in their own attempts to transform.”