Weekly Roundup June 12-16, 2023

 NEW GAO SCIENCE & TECH SPOTLIGHT: GENERATIVE AI. Generative AI systems—like ChatGPT and Bard—create text, images, audio, video, and other content. This Spotlight examines the technology behind these systems that are surging in popularity. These systems are trained to recognize patterns and relationships in massive datasets and can quickly generate content from this data when prompted by a user. These growing capabilities could be used in education, government, medicine, law, and other fields.

Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

 “Inside government…,” notes Jennifer Pahlka, former U.S. deputy chief technology officer, “the digital revolution played out very differently. Even as our expectations about the immediacy and accuracy of services have skyrocketed, the implementation of laws has become anything but easier.

Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better: A Conversation with Jennifer Pahlka, author of Recoding America

How did the US government go from being a digital pioneer to a digital laggard? Why do governments need digital, design, and data capabilities in-house? How can the US federal government rebuild its digital capabilities and truly transform how government does business? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Jen Pahlka, former federal deputy Chief Technology Officer and author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
Broadcast Date: 
Monday, June 12, 2023 - 11:17

Jennifer Pahlka, Author, Recoding America

Jennifer Pahlka is author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. She is the founder and former executive director of Code for America. She served as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2013–2014, where she founded the United States Digital Service. She received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and was named by Wired as one of the 25 people who has most shaped the past 25 years. She serves on the Defense Innovation Board and the board of the Tech Talent Project.

Weekly Roundup: June 5-9, 2023

VA’s DelBene: Contractors Playing Integral Innovation Role. VA is driving forward the idea that when it comes to technology and innovation, federal contractors need to become an integral part of the government team. Kurt DelBene, VA’s chief information officer (CIO), said “One of the things that we’ve observed – and I’ve noted as I joined – is that there’s an arm’s length typically too often between the contractor and the full-time teams.

Using IT and Data to Meet Mission

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is to promote the progress of science. It promotes the progress of science by investing in research to expand knowledge in science, engineering, and education. NSF also invests in actions that increase the capacity of the U.S. to conduct and exploit such research. NSF research has made possible many of the technological advances that have improved medicine, communications, transportation, manufacturing, and the utilization of natural resources, together with a broad range of other impacts on our lives.

Opening the Aperture and Leveraging New and Emerging Shared Services

Blog Co-Author: Karin O'Leary, Shared Services Fellow, IBM Center for The Business of Government

Dorothy Aronson

Dorothy Aronson is NSF's Chief Information Officer (CIO). She is the principal advisor to the agency's Director and other senior management on all matters involving information technology (IT). Ms. Aronson oversees policy and governance for the efficient, effective use of IT resources to accomplish the Foundation's mission.

Humans of Public Service – One Year In and Many More to Come!

Brian -- who also successful leads change in his day job as Chief Innovation officer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and is an alum of GSA’s 18F program – modeled this effort on the now internationally renowned “Humans of New York” stories, focusing on interesting and committed people making a difference at all levels of government. Brian recently received a Fed 100 award for his leadership on this work. He reflects on a year of success and previews things to come in a guest blog below.

Pages