4 Years of Tech Challenges — Are We Really Moving Forward?

4 years in any technology cycle is a lifetime. Think about this – 4 years ago BYOD wasn’t even a possibility and tablets still seemed like a dream.

So how can the government keep up? And more importantly how can the government utilize the latest and greatest technology to support its mission?

Molly O’Neill is the co-chair of the Quadrennial Government Technology Review. Every four years the group takes a hard look at the federal government’s technology and offers up suggestions for a path forward.

They’ve written seven papers covering a wide variety of government tech trends. She told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program how the group was able to identify best practices.

Technology’s Path Forward:

• Empowering Citizen-Driven Government through Collaboration and Service Delivery
  • Citizens as partners with government
  • Citizens as advocates of government
  • Citizens as consumers of government

• Educating our Workforce for Today’s Jobs in Science and Technology
  • “It doesn’t matter how great the technology if you can’t properly use it. We need Chief Innovation Officers not Chief Information Officers,” said O’Neill.
• Improving Population Wellness and Reducing Growth in Healthcare Costs

  • The Nation is experiencing uncontrolled growth in medical costs, fueled by the baby boomer
    population bubble, the national debt crisis, and a medical system designed to treat the “billable
    symptoms” — not the root causes. If we move quickly to improve wellness, we can minimize the
    damage and even protect the country from future economic storms precipitated by these
    same forces. Time is of the essence.

• Enhancing National Security Through Responsible Information Sharing and Identity Management (in final development, not currently available)
• Unleashing the Power of Information Technology to Reduce the Budget Deficit
  • CMS Analytics
  • VA model for cost efficiencies
  • IRS model for rooting out waste fraud and abuse
• Delivering Mission Results by Aligning Business and Information Technology
• Tackling the Nation’s Biggest Challenges by Investing in Information Technology
  • You have to invest in the right areas, areas like cloud, cybersecurity, mobile and big data.