GSA Invites You to Join Its Innovation Center

The General Services Administration has launched the Digital Services Innovation Center, a key piece of the Obama administration’s digital government strategy released in late May. And now GSA is calling on some great government entrepreneurs and techies to join in and help in creating a digital presence where government information can be accessed anywhere, anytime and on any device.

In a blog post on Friday, Gwynne Kostin, director of the new innovation center, wrote that the new center will consist of a small core staff housed within GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. The effort also will be pulling in contributors from across government to fulfill its mission, she said.

“As a result of GSA’s work on the digital government strategy, the American public can expect an improved customer experience from digital government services,” Kostin wrote. “Over the coming year, the public will be able to access and use more government information than ever before.”

According to the innovation center’s website, there are four ways government employees can join in to help:

• Agency Reps: The center will host full-time federal employees for assignments ranging from one to three weeks or three to nine months depending on the projects.
• Co-Los: Federal employees working on closely aligned initiatives will share innovation space and lessons learned, to speed implementation. These projects may include building governance models and creating quality support for Web services.
• 20-percenters: Like many leading companies such as Google and 3M, which allow staff to work on innovative projects for 20 percent of their work week, the DSIC will let feds take on a center initiative one day (eight hours) per week. This means workers can gain new opportunities for development without the costs of travel or training.
• TAPAS (Small Plates): Feds can take on small, discrete tasks of one to five hours, such as copy editing, software testing, proofing, code review and captioning.

Are you interested in offering your skills to the new innovation center? If so, click here.