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.
CivicActions has also created DistributedGov (distributedgov.org) to serve as a centralized resource for community and information related to government distributed work.
The webinar, “Quickly Shifting to Distributed Teams in Government,” will repeat each day, Monday to Friday, March 16-20 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and is free to all government employees.
John O’Duinn, author of “Distributed Teams: The Art and Practice of Working Together While Physically Apart,” will present. John is a technologist and entrepreneur who has served in the U.S. Digital Service in the Obama White House. He co-created the State of Vermont policy encouraging remote work to promote economic growth, and is now supporting the development of similar policies for multiple jurisdictions worldwide.
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.”
The issue is that ICE renewed its purchase of GitHub Enterprise Server for $200,000. GitHub says it will honor the contract, but will continue its advocacy against the “administration’s terrible immigration policies” and will donate $500,000 “to nonprofit organizations working to support immigrant communities targeted by the current administration.”
From the post:
Like many Hubbers, I strongly disagree with many of the current administration’s immigration policies, including the practice of separating families at the border, the Muslim travel ban, and the efforts to dismantle the DACA program that protects people brought to the U.S. as children without documentation. The leadership team shares these views. These policies run counter to our values as a company, and to our ethics as people. We have spoken out as a company against these practices, and joined with other companies in protesting them.
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We respect the fact that for those of us in the United States, we live in a democratic republic in which the public elects our officials and they decide, pursuant to the rule of law, the policies the government will pursue. Tech companies, in contrast, are not elected by the public. But we have a corporate voice, and we can use our voice and our resources to seek changes in the policies that we oppose. As a matter of principle, we believe the appropriate way to advocate for our values in a democracy is to use our corporate voice, and not to unplug technology services when government customers use them to do things to which we object.
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We believe that this principled approach will also be impactful as a matter of pragmatism. Attempting to cancel a purchase will not convince the current administration to alter immigration policy. Other actions, such as public advocacy, supporting lawsuits, meaningful philanthropy, and leveraging the vast resources of Microsoft will have the greatest likelihood of affecting public policy. Our voice is heard better by policymakers when we have a seat at the table.
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As software becomes more important in the world, we will continue to face increasingly challenging political and social questions. Even with careful thought, we will sometimes make mistakes. My hope is that we can be an organization that works hard to make principle-based decisions, that regularly reflects on and remains willing to refine its principles, and that recognizes the inevitability of interpersonal disagreement around those principles and challenges that constructively. It’s incumbent on all of us to find ways to cohesively navigate the increasingly turbulent times we find ourselves in.
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.