Jason Shueh

Before “open data” became a catchphrase for innovation, there was Data.gov, the first open data portal for federal agencies. Under the direction of President Barack Obama and the guiding hand of US CIO Vivek Kundra, the site went live in 2009. It was the first platform to deliver federal data to citizens, civic hackers, academics and anyone else seeking insights from government information.

In the beginning, it could arguably be described as an experiment. Yet its growth soon became an inevitability as the Obama Administration, along with bipartisan research and transparency groups, latched on to the site as a persuasive tool to drive policy with data. The site has gone on to publish more than 180,000 data sets from federal agencies, embracing a belief long held by successful companies like Google and Amazon that information supersedes the heated emotions and rhetoric of politics. It’s this idea that fueled the president’s 2013 executive order urging agencies to make open data a default practice. Since then, the White House has leveraged technology and data to find solutions to a host of pressing societal problems. Some of these prominent works have included the Police Data Initiative, which partners with police departments to publish crime data, the Opportunity Project, which publishes open data apps to assist citizens, and coordination of the National Day of Civic Hacking, an event that encourages data-driven hackathons in communities in all 50 states.

Just as a school teacher roots for his students, the Center for Digital Government is hopeful every two years that each respondent to its Digital States Survey will astound with reports of their technological feats. Though a competition of sorts, the Digital States Survey is more a showcase of state government's collective technology portfolio. And the outlook suggested by the 2016 survey is as strong as one would expect given the financial growth of the gov tech sector and the public's increasing interest in civic participation.

No states received a D or F, and just eight states landed in the C grade range. A growing number of states fill out the top of the curve compared to surveys past — 20 states earned a grade of B+ or higher, and a whopping 10 states earned an A or A-. States with a solid A grade are Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and Virginia. Common trends among the A students were a strong focus on cybersecurity, shared services, cloud computing, IT staffing, budgeting and use of data.

Swelling numbers coupled with a temporary setback in fundraising have prompted the civic tech nonprofit Code for America (CfA) to begin restructuring its volunteer Brigade program. The undertaking, arguably one of the most pivotal the group has addressed since its start in 2009, aims to construct an operating model that can sustain its continued expansion. Since 2012, the San Francisco-based organization’s Brigade program has seen aggressive growth in its work to provide civic tech and open data tools to cities nationwide. CfA used part of a $1.5 million grant from Google to launch the Brigades, and in the five years that the program has existed, it’s increased its ranks from 19 chapters to now more than 80, with thousands of volunteers in cities throughout the US.

The program’s dramatic rise, however, has also pushed costs upward, and in 2015 a fundraising shortfall led CfA to freeze its financial support for Brigade operating expenses, events and meet-ups. CfA Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Pahlka said in a letter that this funding gap has since been closed by donors, but to ensure sustainability, the program must identify a new model for operations that isn’t as dependent on financial support from its parent organization.

Federal technologists, change makers and academics joined the city of San Francisco (CA) in a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 14 for Superpublic, San Francisco’s new innovation lab. The venture is a first for the city as its work commands support and talent from regional, state and federal organizations in addition to academic and private-sector contributions.

The General Services Administration (GSA) — which manages 375 million square feet of federal property — has offered the lab a 5,000-square-foot operating space in the heart of San Francisco’s downtown and support from its digital consultancy 18F, housed in the same building, which works to guide government to build, buy and share modern technology. Other partners include UC Berkeley, the Center for Design Research at Stanford University, the MIT Media Lab, Microsoft and Deloitte. The lab’s supporting nonprofits include the City Innovate Foundation and the Local Government Commission, both with missions to drive urban innovation efforts. The lab will be mutually beneficial for the GSA. Denise Turner Roth, the GSA’s administrator, described Superpublic as a new testing ground to expand 18F’s footprint and impact in cities nationwide. Since it was founded in 2014, the group has grown to support a number of innovation projects in federal agencies. This has dispatched its team of engineers, designers and procurement specialists to develop and rework a bevy of digital tools and IT buying strategies that now can be applied more locally.

A Q&A with General Services Administration Administrator Dan Tangherlini

Only a couple years old now and the federal digital consultancy 18F has a lot to deal with. The innovation group, which helps agencies build, buy and share modern tech, is under fire from sources within and outside of government. Externally, 18F is defending itself from IT lobbyists, representing companies like IBM, Deloitte, Cisco Systems and others, that allege 18F is hindering revenues as a competing government tech provider — a message they shared at a recent hearing evaluating 18F's effectiveness. Internally, the group has met resistance from CIOs unsure of its private-sector development practices, and within the General Services Administration (GSA), 18F's parent agency, insiders say that the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) that funds 18F is actively working to terminate the group. Tangherlini said 18F, one of the contributors responsible for saving Healthcare.gov, should be allowed to innovate, especially considering the federal government’s nearly $90 billion in IT spending, 75 percent of which is spent on outdated technology, according to a recent 18F oversight report by the Government Accountability Office.

Estella Geraghty, the deputy director for California’s Department of Public Health and the portal’s project leader, met with public officials on Aug 7 to announce the official launch of the site at health.data.ca.gov and to elaborate on next steps.

Geraghty said the initial sets of data tables will include birth profiles, popular baby names, poverty rates, and locations of vendors who accept vouchers from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH)’s Women, Infants and Children program (WIC). It will also contain health-care facilities data, a mapped timeline of West Nile virus incidents and asthma statistics.

Though all initial data stems from the CDPH, eventually the portal will serve as a hub for open data from other California HHS departments.

Nextdoor, a neighbor-to-neighbor social media platform, is growing at breakneck pace: from 176 neighborhoods to more than 38,000 today -- that number represents one in four neighborhoods throughout the US.

With such an upswell, cities have taken note and have already green-lighted departments to leverage Nextdoor for neighborhood notification purposes and dialogues.

Most are using the service for police and other emergency management agencies: 212 and counting. For government, the emerging startup raises questions about sustainability, its business strategies and -- integrated into workflows -- how best to apply Nextdoor’s high-touch access to citizens.

Technology proponents don’t need to make a case for the role of computer science in tomorrow’s job market. Today, it’s self-evident in the economy and daily life.

Tech advocates, however, are calling on educators to prepare students by institutionalizing computer science in core curriculums.

On the front lines of this campaign is Code.org. The advocacy group, which offers educational tools for teachers and students, lobbies to yoke computer science alongside traditional mathematics and science courses at all grade levels. T

he organization gained notoriety in 2013 with its Hour of Code campaign, which, since its launch in December, has drawn more than 38 million students who’ve participated in the campaign’s coding activities -- with 10 million, its initial goal, in the first three days of the campaign.

Roxanne Emadi, a promotional strategist for Code.org, says despite technology's pervasiveness there is great need for educators to distinguish between computer science, the study of how computers work, from technology training, where students learn software programs to accomplish tasks.

"We think there's a big difference between knowing how to use technology and knowing how to create technology,” Emadi said.

The movement to allow everyday items to connect to the Internet has gained momentum, as toothbrushes, bathroom scales and trash cans (to name a few) are available with sensors and online access.

And now, this dominantly consumer-based field may see a new line up of enterprise-focused -- and potentially government-focused -- startups through a new program by the Alchemist Accelerator. As a San Francisco-based tech accelerator for startups that provide enterprise-level solutions, Alchemist was recently supercharged with funding from Cisco Systems to launch its first six-month accelerator program to support Internet of everything startups.

The program draws upon a portion of $150 million -- funding that Cisco allocated in April -- for growth outside traditional markets. Openings for 13 startup teams have been offered, and an application deadline has been set for May 17 with the Internet of Everything Accelerator program to start on Aug 21. Alchemist’s Managing Director Ravi Belani spoke with Government Technology to outline why the program was created and what it intends to accomplish during its inaugural debut.

[Commentary] Though the debate about open data in government is an evolving one, it is indisputably here to stay -- it can be heard in both houses of Congress, in state legislatures, and in city halls around the nation.

Already, 39 states and 46 localities provide data sets to data.gov, the federal government's online open data repository. And 30 jurisdictions, including the federal government, have taken the additional step of institutionalizing their practices in formal open data policies.

Though the term "open data" is spoken of frequently -- and has been since President Barack Obama took office in 2009 -- what it is and why it's important isn't always clear.

“People tend to conflate it with big data," said Emily Shaw, the national policy manager at the Sunlight Foundation, "and I think it’s useful to think about how it’s different from big data in the sense that open data is the idea that public information should be accessible to the public online."

Among the benefits of open data are improved measurement of policies, better government efficiency, deeper analytical insights, greater citizen participation, and a boost to local companies by way of products and services that use government data. “The way I personally think of open data,” Shaw said, “is that it is a manifestation of the idea of open government."