Page 31 - April 2018 Disruption Report Flip Book

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
JAANPURAIRLY20210818
“The technology isn’t really the big thing here; it’s really what it enables and how it changes
the organization, and how the organization changes with it,” said Todd Hager, VP of Macro Solutions and co-leader of the working group. “So much of the readiness is really with that change management and if you’re ready to take that on.”
(ACT-IAC) plans to add implementation and integration phases to the Playbook and incorporate input from stakeholders at a later date. It will be a “living document,” said Andrew Vanjani, acting IT director of GSE’s Integrated Award Environment. “Things will change as technology is changing,” added Vanjani. “As this is an open source project, we’re welcoming any suggestions, recommendations. All criticism is welcome for this.” (FedScoop.com, Carten Cordell, 04/04/18; Blockchain Playbook Online-beta)
In a speech at the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council’s Blockchain Forum. Tony Scott, former U.S. CIO, said he worries that a litany of federal agency blockchain pilots could fragment the benefits of the technology. He said:
While there could be tens of thousands, if not more, of really interesting use cases for blockchain in the federal government, probably the wrong thing to do is for there to be 10,000 or more individual siloed, narrow permutations of the technology.
The real benefit of this, I think, is in common use across multiple agencies around common needs. The U.S. government could declare certain things as common-use utilities. Why not have an auction and say ‘Who wants to bid on an own blockchain for identity or blockchain for some other set of common uses?’ And [then] license or auction off that use case to companies that are willing to invest in the technology, platform or common layer that multiple agencies could take advantage of.
... My plea is for some degree of planning and thoughtful sort of direction, but also enabling framework that would allow some of this utility value of blockchain to really flourish and reach its full potential.
Scott’s concept mirrors the Trump administration’s central tenant of shared services in its IT modernization strategy. Dcode founder and CEO Meagan Metzger said while the concept shows promise, it faces a long path to adoption by most agencies. Metzger said:
I think there is some really strong use for it, I just think it’s a way off. It’s definitely something to be very cognizant of, that we don’t want siloed blockchains, but some of the best use cases for blockchain are going to be the ones that are inherently trying to take down silos.
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