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CDT's Office of Innovation Wants to 'Stop Building Yesterday Tomorrow'

The Department of Technology's chief digital innovation officer sat down Thursday with the Public Sector Councils' director of CompTIA to discuss innovating in the public sector.

The Department of Technology's chief digital innovation officer sat down Thursday with the Public Sector Council's director of CompTIA to discuss innovating in the public sector.

Often, the public sector is accused of being late adopters of new technology, they told the audience at Thursday's Techwire State of Technology Industry Forum.

"When it comes to innovation, government is always a few steps behind the commercial side of the house, and there's a number of reasons why that is," said Jennifer Saha, director of the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), an industry advocacy group. 

"Why can't government just function like a business? The motivations are not the same; they're not trying to make a profit. ... They're like a giant nonprofit, really," she said.

Saha and CDIO Scott Gregory were the panelists, with moderator Scott Reilly, strategic account executive at VMware.

The CDT Office of Innovation brings together developers, data scientists, business analysts, innovation fellows and geospatial analysts to develop and test new technology to solve business problems and throw off the late-adopter thought process.

"Why can't some of the best innovations that we've found in the private sector apply more easily to government?" Saha asked.

Saha said comparing successes at private companies can be examined and tested in the public sector.

CDIO Scott Gregory said he has begun an attempt to do that.

"My primary role is to engender a new way of looking at technology and how it is applied internal to the Department of Technology, prove those concepts there, and then share those concepts more broadly to the rest of the state," Gregory said.

The CDT's Innovation Office serves other agencies, including the governor's office.

"My role is sort of internal and external, but really sort of driving the notion of leveraging technology and data science to improve government and improve the services that we deliver to citizens of the state," Gregory said.

Bringing "fresh thinking" and a change to the public sector's organizational culture can offer new ideas. Other states and local jurisdictions have harnessed similar teams to follow up on the same ideas.

"The most advanced blockchain project in the state of Illinois is out of the Cook County Recorder's Office, just one tiny little sliver of a county government. California is on the cutting edge, but some really innovative and unique technologies are being used across the US, especially at the local levels," Saha said.

So far, the CDT's office has:

  • Revamped the Ca.gov site
  • Created an immigrant guide in multiple languages
  • Begun using "human-centered design"
"That's really paid dividends for us when we look at developing new tools and new services," Gregory said. "... That novel question where we ask, 'Well, why don't we ask them what they want?' instead of us determining what that is." 

The CDT is developing:

  • A digital services academy, which Gregory hopes will be up and running by late 2018
  • An Innovation Lab to act as a "sandbox" for private- and public-sector solutions-testing
  • An open-source site, linked to GitHub, that curates code that can be used across the state's organizations
Gregory hopes the CDT office will "stop building yesterday tomorrow."

Kayla Nick-Kearney was a staff writer for Techwire from March 2017 through January 2019.