How the White House Is Building a Strong Digital Team
The White House is on a mission to bring a Silicon Valley mindset to government. The 2012 launch of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and the creation of the General Services Administration's digital hub, known as 18F, are fruits of that labor. But that's not all.
President Obama is building a star-studded team to ensure the government's digital services align with the best private-sector services and identify common technology patterns that will help the government scale services effectively. It's called the U.S. Digital Service. Former Google engineer and Healthcare.gov fixer Mikey Dickerson will serve as administrator of the Digital Service, "a small team made up of our country's brightest digital talent that will work with agencies to remove barriers to exceptional service delivery and help remake the digital experience that people and businesses have with their government," according to a post on the Office of Management and Budget blog.
Also joining the president's team is Megan Smith, the new federal chief technology officer and former vice president at Google, which The New York Times has described as "a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, [and] the future is being imagined." Former Chief Technology Officer Todd Park moved back to California and will serve as a technology adviser focused on recruiting top tech talent for the government and innovative ways to improve federal digital services.
