The U.S. Space Force has outlined its vision for a digital service.
In-Q-Tel wants to talk to people interested in open source software and national security
In-Q-Tel, the innovation and venture arm of the U.S. intelligence community, has published several open source themed posts recently, including “Toward Secure Code Reuse” and, most recently, one about GitGeo, a tool it developed that analyzes the geography of developers associated with a GitHub repository.
The federal government is giving away free .gov domains to all official U.S. government entities
The DotGov Program, which administers .gov top-level domain assignments to official U.S. government entities, now offers the service for free.
How NASA and the open source community helped a helicopter achieve lift-off on Mars
GitHub has a great write-up of how open source community contributions played a key role in helping NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter achieve lift-off on Mars.
Biden nominates Robin Carnahan to be next GSA administrator
President Biden has nominated digital government innovator Robin Carnahan as the next administrator of General Services Administration.
Backpacks, bean bags and blue jeans: My take on ‘tech titans,’ 18F and USDS
Apparently, in 2021, there are people who still refuse to recognize the holistic, energetic and sustainable impact 18F and the U.S. Digital Services has — and continues to have — on keeping the federal government digital services industry and profession relevant and attractive to highly-qualified designers, developers, product and project managers and anyone generally interested in well-functioning U.S. Government technology.
Working in public
Nadia Eghbal’s “Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software” is a deep and intellectual dive into the nuances of open source, yet still an excellent resource for government officials to both understand its role and importance in building civic technology, but is also relatable in many ways to the concepts of public service and public goods.
Roadmapping government websites
What’s great about about the public roadmap, particularly for large government institutions, is that they show there is a plan, but they are also a powerful demonstration of civic openness.
Virtual queuing and appointment startup Whyline raises $1.25M from e.Republic Ventures
Virtual queuing and appointment startup Whyline has completed a $1.25 million pre-series A round led by e.Republic Ventures.
Center for Plain Language publishes 2020 federal government plain language report card
The Center for Plain Language published its 2020 federal website plain language report card.
GSA: Distributed work makes government teams happier, more productive and inclusive
The U.S. General Services Administration’s 18F has a great post on why distributed government is critical to highly-functioning public service teams, emphasizing a ‘distributed first’ approach to work.
Facebook announces Roy Austin will lead new internal civil rights organization
Facebook announced that Roy L. Austin, Jr., will join the company as vice president of civil rights and deputy general counsel to establish the company’s new internal civil rights organization.
Mozilla: Here’s how to proactively manage social media bad actors, including politicians
In the aftermath of the deplatforming of Donald Trump, Mozilla offers concrete advice on how to best deal with bad actors — including heads of states and politicians — on social media platforms, beyond just suspending or permanently removing them.
Twitter permanently suspends @realDonaldTrump
Twitter announced it has permanently suspended Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
Terms of use: Applying a human rights framework to social media platforms
To better demarcate the lines between freedom of speech and censorship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls for social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram to apply a human rights framework to their terms of use.
Making government research more inclusive
Canadian Digital Service design research team members Martha Edwards and Anne-Marie Mulumba share great insights into how people in government are making their research more inclusive.
2021 GovTech 100 list highlights key companies helping power local government, but there’s still a lot of room for open innovation
Government Technology released its annual GovTech 100 list for 2021 and, while there are newcomers to the list, there is still a lot of room for new innovation.
New DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act gives governments easier access to official .gov domains
I’ve been an advocate of U.S.-based government organizations having .gov domains for quite sometime, so it’s great to see Congress has made this easier and potentially cheaper to achieve.
U.S. Air Force is doing a brand review ‘to ensure an inclusive and professional environment’
The Department of the Air Force has directed commanders to conduct a comprehensive review of official and unofficial unit emblems, morale patches, mottos, nicknames, coins and other forms of unit recognition and identity to ensure an inclusive and professional environment within 60 days from Dec. 23, 2020.
Cori Zarek named new executive director for Georgetown’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University today announced that Cori Zarek will take over as executive director.
Veterans Affairs publishes ‘government’s first-ever employee experience journey map’
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs published what it says is the government’s first-ever employee experience journey map.
GAO publishes agency data governance assessment, recommendations to Chief Data Officers Council
The U.S. Government Accountability Office published a report on data governance progress across four federal agencies.
The Government We Need: How government can make public budgeting more participatory
Shari Davis talks with The Government We Need about building a more inclusive, democratic public budgeting process.
Defense Department has more than one million personnel working remotely, have ‘increased their productivity’
The U.S. Department of Defense is publicly sharing its gradual transformation to distributed government teams and said there are more than one million personnel working remotely.
The Government We Need: How government can support climate action
The Government We Need talks with Rick Cole about local government’s role in sustainability.
How to watch the historic SpaceX NASA flight launch
Liftoff for the much-hyped SpaceX test flight of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, at 4:33 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Good government services
In their new book “Good Services: How to design services that work,” former UK Government Design Director Lou Downe offers the public sector an invaluable playbook to delivering government services that are in inclusive and intentional.
Rethinking bail
TED Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi’s conversation with The Bail Project’s Robin Steinberg is incredibly insightful and inspiring. Steinberg shares her work supporting those who can’t afford to pay cash bail, which ultimately leads to a downward spiral of injustice.
NASA will host a virtual COVID-19 hackathon in partnership with European, Japanese space agencies
NASA will host a virtual COVID-19 hackathon May 30 to 31, 2020, in partnership with the European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
RAND report offers insights into second generation open source intelligence
The RAND Corporation published Defining Second Generation Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for the Defense Enterprise, a thoroughly informative report on how the intelligence community can better define and leverage technology to improve its approach to open source intelligence.
Design thinking in the intelligence community
The NavalX Centers for Adaptive Warfighting hosted a discussion on design thinking with Office of the Director of National Intelligence Director of Lateral Innovation Katherine Tobin. Tobin shared her design thinking journey and how ODNI incorporates it into its work.
Defense Department launches digital COVID-19 symptom checker
The U.S. Department of Defense has launched an online COVID-19 symptom checker at MySymptoms.mil.
U.S. intelligence community releases annual transparency report
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its annual transparency report.
U.S government publishes human-centered design evaluation and buying guide
The U.S. General Services Administration published an Evaluation and Buying Guide to “help federal agencies seeking Human-Centered Design (HCD) services to improve Customer Experience (CX).”
USAID seeks chief technology officer
The U.S. Agency for International Development is looking for a new chief technology officer.
Governments now have access to a centralized resource of open source coronavirus projects
New America has launched the Pandemic Response Repository that will serve as a centralized location for open source projects aimed at helping governments respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
Free webinar: ‘Quickly Shifting to Distributed Teams in Government’
To support government teams quickly shifting to distributed work during the COVID-19 pandemic, CivicActions will host a free webinar — repeated daily the week of March 16 — to share best practices and answer questions from the government community at large. Topics to be covered include operations, communications, security and productivity in a distributed work environment.
Distributed teams are critical to the future success of digital government services
We’re at the point in the organizational and civic evolutionary cycle where distributed teams can and should play a critical role in building highly-effective digital government service teams.
GitHub opens up about its relationship with ICE
In a post on the GitHub blog, CEO Nat Friedman publicly addressed the company’s business relationship with U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, its opinion on the current administration’s immigration policy and “the principles by which we make decisions in these areas.”
TSA seeks chief innovation officer
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is looking for an executive-level chief innovation officer.
NSF will fund $120 million to advance artificial intelligence innovation
The National Science Foundation announced $120 million in funding for a new organization — the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes — “that will significantly advance research in AI and accelerate the development of transformational, AI-powered innovation.”
The Government We Need: How government can find its purpose
The Government We Need talks with Brian Elms about how government can ask the right questions and find its true public service purpose.
NSA launches new cybersecurity directorate to ‘prevent and eradicate threats to national security systems and critical infrastructure’
The National Security Agency announced the creation of a new fifth domain-focused internal organization that will “work to prevent and eradicate threats to national security systems and critical infrastructure, with an initial focus on the defense industrial base and the improvement of our weapons’ security.”
Winning ‘The Shadow War’
Whether it’s online, on land, underwater or in space, CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto’s “The Shadow War: Inside Russia’s and China’s Secret Operations to Defeat America” offers ominous insights into how the United States’ key adversaries are changing the dynamics of national security.
UK will pilot AI government procurement guidelines co-designed with World Economic Forum
The United Kingdom Government announced it will pilot newly-developed artificial intelligence procurement guidelines it co-designed with the World Economic Forum.
NSA challenges students to test their cyber skills in mock national security exercise
The National Security Agency will host a “cyber-challenge similar to those that regularly threaten national security,” open to students at any U.S. based academic institution. The exercise will run from September 20, 2019 to January 10, 2020.
Food Safety 2.0: FDA shares its vision for a digital, transparent food safety system
In an interview with the agency, the Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas discussed its latest efforts to “leverage new and emerging technologies to prevent contamination and rapidly trace the origin of a tainted food to its source.”
‘The woeful state of government technology’
San Francisco Chief Digital Services Officer Carrie Bishop published an excellent commentary piece that touches on several issues we in the digital government industry don’t talk much about, or at all.
White House adds ‘agile and responsive’ security practices to trusted internet connections updates
The White House announced updates to the federal government Trusted Internet Connections initiative with the intent to empower agencies with security practices that aim to remove barriers to modern technology adoption.
New center wants to help Congress grok deep space, deep fakes
The U.S. Government Accountability Office launched a new Center for Strategic Foresight to help Congress better understand issues related to emerging notorious technologies, such as deep space and deep fakes, that impact a well-functioning democracy.