Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 20 February 2020
Tech-starved government seeks industry's best, brightest

Denver (AP) — In this post- can have more impact
impeachment era of divi- on the world," Cutts said.
siveness and deadlock in "It's something we serve in
the nation's capital, Uncle buckets at USDS."
Sam has a message for top USDS boosters say the politi-
U.S. technologists: cal transition from Obama
I Still Want You. to Trump hasn't stopped
A Washington-based nerd the agency from attracting
strike force called the U.S. bright and dedicated tech
Digital Service is seeking professionals. Others are
private-sector coders, pro- skeptical, especially at a
grammers and software time of internal disputes at
engineers to make gov- big companies like Google
ernment user-friendly for a and Microsoft over corpo-
tech-savvy U.S. public. rate collaborations with
Launched after the 2013 immigration enforcement
crash of the Obama ad- and other federal agen-
ministration's Healthcare. cies.
gov website, the USDS re- Chris Calabrese, vice presi-
cruits the nation's top tech dent for policy at the Center
talent for Peace Corps- for Technology & Democ-
style tours of duty to tack- racy, said he's concerned
le the government's most about how facial recogni-
pressing information man- In this Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, photograph, Theresa Szczurek is shown in her office where she toils tion and other technology
agement and online secu- as the executive director of the Colorado Office of Information Technology in downtown Denver. is being deployed at the
rity problems. Associated Press Mexican border.
It has an increasingly rare "That might be a turnoff for
distinction as an initiative access to health records Trump administration fund- convincing well-paid pri- some candidates," even if
supported by both the for millions of Medicare ing for USDS has been rela- vate sector technicians to USDS isn't involved, he sug-
Obama and Trump admin- patients and their doctors; tively constant. Operating take a two-year sabbatical gested.
istrations, according to cur- building a robust and navi- out of the Office of Man- for the good of the coun- His group backs a proposal
rent and former USDS staff gable Veterans Administra- agement and Budget, the try, despite the political cli- by California Democratic
and White House officials. tion website; securing civil- service has grown to 180 mate. USDS purposely limits U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris to
"We've been enthusias- ian agency and Defense people. Its $13 million bud- its tours to bring in the latest authorize $50 million a year
tic about USDS since Day Department websites. get has held since 2019. talent and let it go to stay for USDS, and millions more
One," said Mathew Lira, a "The government is incred- In his new $4.8 trillion bud- abreast of industry. for state and local initia-
special assistant to Trump in ibly short of engineers, de- get plan for the 2021 fis- Cutts — who pioneered tives, through 2027. The
the White House Office of signers and product man- cal year that starts Oct. 1, Google's search engine White House hasn't taken a
American Innovation. agers," said USDS Adminis- Trump seeks to hold down optimization efforts before stand on the bill.
Early USDS projects — fix- trator Matt Cutts. "You can deficits by cutting domes- joining USDS — cites his own USDS leaders insist their mis-
ing the public-facing web- apply for a mortgage on tic programs, and the USDS conversion. sion is to help career IT staff
site of Obama's Affordable your phone, but govern- isn't spared at a proposed "When I started in the tech members in government,
Care Act, helping green ment services are another $7 million. But officials say industry, I firmly believed not supplant them. Once
card holders apply for re- matter." it's likely that the service, that Google's mission was a project is done, a code
newals electronically — The service also has lauded for its work by Trump to organize the information is rewritten, an application
might not be top Trump ad- spawned a growing civic senior adviser and son-in- world," he said. interface is created, USDS
ministration priorities today. tech movement assisting law Jared Kushner, won't A change of heart and pur- teams leave the new tech-
But many projects con- state and local govern- see any funding cuts as the suit of purpose led him to nology in place and move
tinue: Enabling electronic ments as well as nonprofits. budget process moves for- civil service. on.
ward. "Now a lot of my friends A "Hack the Pentagon" pro-
A constant challenge is ask themselves how they gram invites hackers to find
security flaws. A new NATO
system allows the coalition
to track its efforts to support
the Afghan government.
New software enables U.S.
troops to quickly detect en-
emy drones.
"Our goal is to come in, look
at the problem with fresh
eyes, deal with people in
government who have
been banging their heads
against the wall, and em-
power those people," Cutts
said.
Meanwhile, an increasing
number of U.S. states are
adopting the USDS model,
including California, Col-
orado, New Jersey and
Georgia.q