DHS Gets Its Own Digital Services Team
Mark J. Terrill/AP File Photo
A founding member of the U.S. Digital Service is leaving to stand up DHS' team, modeled after the White House version.
One of the White House's top techies is joining the Department of Homeland Security to set up its new digital services team.
Eric Hysen was a founding member of the roughly year-old U.S. Digital Service team, a group of private-sector technologists assigned to help federal agencies solve IT problems such as the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov. Now, Hysen is leaving the White House to launch DHS' own in-house tech team, modeled after USDS.
In a blog post, the former Google product manager wrote that his new team could focus on "everything from facilitating international trade to responding to disasters to improving the federal government’s information security practices.”
Early projects will include continuing work with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. As part of a pilot before DHS had its own in-house team, USDS had been working with UCSIS to help modernize the immigration application process. Their efforts included transitioning USCIS' services to a public cloud, adding an application-monitoring feature to the online process, and conducting user research.
DHS is among the first wave of federal agencies to create their own digital services teams. The Department of Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense Department have teams in varying stages of development.
The Obama administration's 2016 budget requested $105 million for creating in-house digital service teams within 25 federal agencies and departments, though a Senate committee in July approved an annual spending measure for just about one-third of funds requested.
DHS had requested $10 million for its own digital services team, but a House spending bill only approved half that and objected to using 2-year funds to hire digital service team members. Congress hasn't yet negotiated final funding levels for 2016.