VanRoekel: Digital government strategy has 'hit the ground running'
The White House is making progress on realizing its vision of building a technology-savvy, citizen-centric government.
Just a month after releasing a roadmap to structure a 21st-century government, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel says the Obama administration has "hit the ground running” and is working to push the strategy forward.
Released May 23, the Digital Government Strategy lays out milestones for how agencies will provide citizens access to government information and services on any mobile device.
One of the first steps the administration has taken is setting up the Digital Services Innovation Center, a virtual hub that will “incubate and accelerate innovative digital services,” VanRoekel wrote June 21 on the OMBlog.
With a team from the General Services Administration, the center is working to leverage the expertise from government experts using temporary staffing arrangements, multiagency teams and others with specialized knowledge and skills to handle turnaround needs, VanRoekel said.
As its initial task, the center is identifying and providing performance and customer satisfaction measurement tools to enhance service delivery and more, VanRoekel said. The team will work with the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, which matches the sharpest minds from industry, nonprofits or academia with top innovators in the federal sector to work on six-month projects.
VanRoekel said the program said has seen 700 applicants, and thousands more have expressed their interest in following and contributing to their success.
“The numbers of applications are very encouraging, and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and I are thrilled to see this type of enthusiasm for the program and the mission it represents,” he said.