U.S. citizens create world-beating tech sites like Amazon, Facebook and Twitter — so why can’t agencies like the IRS or Veterans Affairs do the same? The White House’s chief technology officer, Megan Smith, suggested it’s possible, provided the government can attract enough people with a high TQ, or technology quotient, to work there.
Smith points to the emergence of “innovation labs” within agencies as evidence that the government can foster the same sort of skunkworks-style thinking found in Silicon Valley, where Smith made her name as a senior Google executive.
Echoing a mantra of executives at Google X, Smith wants to find ways for the government to exhibit the sort of technological prowess that normally occurs only in wartime. She also emphasized that she and her deputy, former Twitter lawyer Alex Macgillivray, want to reduce the sort of regulatory morass that can inhibit innovation.
But while Smith’s words will be welcome to the tech sector, where she and Macgillivray are held in very high regard, there is still the stubborn reality of government. Even as Smith cited issues like patents, copyright and net neutrality as top priorities, a visit to the websites for those topics feels like tumbling into an internet time warp. If the arrival of the smartest minds from Silicon Valley can’t help the Patent Office implement a rational search function, what hope is there of remaking the rest of the federal bureaucracy.
Women in Tech: Megan Smith is an entrepreneur, tech evangelist, engineer, and connector. At Google[x], Smith works on a range of projects including co-creating/hosting SolveForX. For nine years prior she led Google’s New Business Development team managing early-stage partnerships, pilot explorations, and technology licensing for Google’s global engineering and product teams. She led the acquisitions of Keyhole (Google Earth), Where2Tech (Google Maps), and Picasa, and also led the Google.org team transition to add more engineering with Google Crisis Response, GoogleforNonprofits, Earth Outreach/Engine, and increased employee engagement. Prior to joining Google, Smith was CEO and, earlier, COO of PlanetOut, the leading LGBT online community, where the team broke through many barriers and partnered closely with AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and other major web players, and was early at General Magic and Apple Japan.
