Civic Tech

The first episode of GSA Does That!? is all about civic tech and bringing technologists into government. Join us as we talk with GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan and Presidential Innovation Fellow Executive Director Rebeca Lamadrid about technologists' impact on government. Learn about GSA's history of leading in civic technology and what being a Presidential Innovation Fellow is all about.

The application window for the Presidential Innovation Fellows is open until June 23, 2023. For more information about the program and how to apply, visit pif.gov.

If you like what you heard in this episode, take a deep dive into the subject by visiting gsa.gov/podcast.

"GSA Does That!?" is the U.S. General Services Administration's first agency-wide podcast, offering listeners an inside look into how GSA and its partners benefit the American people. Hosted by Rob Trubia, the podcast features interviews with GSA leaders, experts, partners, and customers, covering topics such as federal real estate, acquisitions, and technology. The title reflects many's surprise at the scope of GSA's impact. At the same time, the artwork pays homage to President Harry S. Truman, who established GSA in 1949 to improve government efficiency and save taxpayer money. Whether you're a policy wonk or just curious about government operations, you can join the listener community.

For more information about the show visit, gsa.gov/podcast.

Transcript

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Welcome to GSA Does That!? The stories behind the federal agency delivering effective and efficient government. I'm your host, Rob Trubia and with me today is Robin Carnahan, the administrator for GSA, and Rebeca Lamadrid, the executive director of the Presidential Innovation Fellows. Today, we're going to talk about how GSA is driving innovation across the government and how the Presidential Innovation Fellows program is helping to make that happen. This podcast is available on all major platforms. Be sure to subscribe and for more information about the show and a deep dive into this episode, visit us at gsa.gov/podcast. Again welcome to GSA does that!? I'm your host Rob Trubia and in each episode we'll go on a journey together through the inner workings of the General Services Administration. This podcast is really about the people and programs that make GSA effective for the American public. Together, we're going to meet a lot of people who do a lot of interesting and innovative things. So this being our first episode, I thought you might like to know a little bit about me. Your GSA Does That!?, host I was born and raised in the Northeast. I grew up in New Hampshire where I married my high school sweetheart. After graduating from college, I went on to serve as a photographer in the Air Force, and since my time on active duty, I've continued to serve in the Air National Guard and Public affairs. My wife and I raised our children in Vermont and moved to Colorado nine years ago, where we still live today. Though I continue to serve in the Air Guard, I now find myself as the podcast host for the GSA, which I couldn't be more excited about. My favorite colors are blue and green. I love pizza, the mountains and e-bikes, and especially meeting new people. And as a curious person, I love talking to new people and learning about their stories. And my favorite question to ask is Where are you from? It is amazing how much you can learn about someone when you know where they call home. And that's a little bit about me, folks. I hope you're as excited as I am to embark on this podcast Journey together. I'm eager to learn all there is to know about the GSA, and I promise to be just as curious as you are. We're going to have some great conversations, learn some new things, and hopefully have a lot of fun along the way. Government is complex and making it run as efficiently as possible is no easy task. But that is what the GSA is all about. Are you ready? Let's go. We have two amazing guests joining us today. The first guest I have the pleasure of introducing you to is a remarkable individual who is leading one of the key agencies in the United States government. Robin Carnahan currently serves as the Administrator of the General Services Administration. Robin has had a long, distinguished career in executive and leadership roles in business, academia and government. Prior to her current role, she served as the Secretary of State of Missouri, where she led the state technology modernization efforts. Robin is a nationally recognized government technology leader and in 2017 was named one of the federal government's top women in tech. We are thrilled to have Robin on the show today and can't wait to learn more about her thoughts on government innovation through smarter use of technology. Robin, thank you for being with us today. Wonderful to be here. And our other amazing guest on her show today is Rebeca Lamadrid, the executive director of the Presidential Innovation Fellows known as PIF. Rebeca brings a unique background in education, professional development and fellowship program management to her role at the GSA. We are honored to have Rebeca on our show today to share her insights on innovation and leadership in government. Hello, Rebeca. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me. Rob. Excited to be here. So I think in the intro I mentioned one of my favorite questions asked people because I just love to meet new people. I'm really meeting you both for the first time. I love to ask people where they are from. So, Robin, I wondered if you might get us started and just share a little bit about your background and where you're from and some fun things about yourself. Well, it's great to meet you in real life, not even in real life, but for the podcast. Rob I am from South Missouri. I grew up in a little bitty town called Rolla, which is on the old Route 66 heading South and currently live with my husband in Saint Louis, Missouri, and spend a lot of time both in Washington and our main office of GSA, but also around the country, traveling and meeting our team. Most of our employees at GSA are outside of Washington. That's great. Well, thanks for sharing that with us. And I know, of course, I did some background. You have a quite your family and yourself, quite a storied history in Missouri. It's exciting. I haven't spent a lot of time in Missouri. I've been to St Louis a little bit, and I'm looking forward to visiting a little bit more. I know, you know, the University of Missouri, has got an incredible photojournalism program which kind of touches my heart, and I think it still does. So that's pretty exciting. And so, Rebeca, where are you from? Rebeca, What can you share with us? Yes. Rob Well, I, I am from Mexico. I was born and raised in Mexico in a city called Monterrey. It's at the north of Mexico in the state of Nuevo Leon. And I grew up there. I went to school at at a university there, an important university for Latin America that is that has its home base in Monterrey. And I now live in Maryland, close to Washington, Bethesda. And I have two two boys and in a family, a husband. And yes, I am I became an American 2018. And I am very honored to be now in public service and and leading this, this fantastic program. So glad you are a U.S. citizen now and that you're serving the American public and doing some amazing things. And that's we're going to talk about today. And, Robin, I wondered, maybe you could just kick us off a little bit. I've got to be honest. So I've I've known about GSA for a long time, but I had never known much about GSA. When I think about GSA, I think about, you know, I think about acquisition, I think about just contracts. I think about mandated places to go purchase things. I think about government buildings. And, you know, I don't think about technology. I may think about IT a little bit, but it really when I think about the IT I think about the acquisition part of it, I don't think about the innovation of the technology, but I've learned that that's a huge role with GSA, especially with you at the helm. So here's my question. Just how big a role does GSA play in tech and improving that technology for the American public? Yeah, you know, it's a really great question. If you think about the history of GSA and why it even exists, it's the operative word in the name of the agency is general. Right? It is General Services Administration. So it was set up as the place to put a lot of the just operations function of government and my fellow Missourian Harry Truman is the one who established GSA back many, many years ago. And the whole purpose was to make government work better, more efficiently for the people that we serve and to save money doing that exact same mission today. It just turns out back when it was set up, the way we could help drive the mission of government and save money was through buildings, right? Because people show up in buildings to be able to do their job and through acquisition, to be able to buy the products and services that they need to deliver on their mission. Those are still important, but increasingly, there is no mystery to you. Anybody here? Technology is a really important sort of, you know, factor in go between and how to deliver government services better. And so that's how GSA has really gotten into the technology business, is our job is to make government work better and save money. Right now, technology, intermediated, so many interactions between people and government that it just makes sense for us to be able to step in and do that. So I can talk about this stuff all day long. This is the reason I wanted to be at GSA, is because I think government is basically a service delivery business. If you think about it, and it's GSA's job to help deliver that service better, and that means doing the technology better. And part of that's about procurement, but part of it is about consulting and helping people understand how they could do that. A lot of government services is kind of the same if you think about it from from the human's interaction with the government agency, like from a technology point of view, it's very similar. You need to identify who you are. You need to have a secure way to log in. To do that, you need to have a way to check the information right, to validate your income maybe. And how many people are in your family or where you live and whether you qualify for a certain program. And then you need a secure way to communicate back and forth and maybe even send money or other information and documents back and forth. And then you need some kind of a back end sort of auditing process for all of that. And if you think about all of that, you shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel at every single agency and every single state. And so, again, that's what GSA’s helping do, is like, what are the shared services that we can provide to our government agencies and to the public that they don't have to just keep reinventing the wheel and paying for that over and over again. So it's pretty exciting. GSA is at the forefront then, of what you're saying. Is it of innovating with technology for the rest of the government, Like you said, why reinvent the wheel for all of these government agencies? So is that what GSA is doing this like this is how we can do this better. And now we can show our other agency partners how to do the same thing. Exactly. So if you think about some of the I call them shared services, right, because it's things you don't have to reinvent. And so we've got we've got, you know, platforms to be able to set up websites quickly. We have the U.S. Web design standards, which is a thing that every agency can use or even out that other nonfederal agencies can use for free to basically set up set up a government website and it meets all the compliance needs and there are like a billion page views a month. Wow. Incredible on all those. So there are those shared services, but we also help agencies figure out how to buy technology better. And we do that by helping with the PIFs who are experts, Presidential Innovation Fellows who are experts, who can go into agencies and help them think about how to have a better experience for their users, how to use their data better, how to have more security and what they're doing. So it's pretty exciting. So you mentioned PIFs. It's a great segway because I really want to spend some time talking today about that program and specifically with Rebeca, who is the executive in charge of that program. So, Rebeca, what is can you explain to us what is a Presidential Innovation Fellow or PIF as I've heard it called, and what type of work do they do? How does the program work? Let's get into that. It's a pretty exciting. Thank you for that question, Rob. Why does a Presidential Innovation Fellow get to do well? That answer that the answer to that question may vary just to give you. You know, I take many of the fellows that come in to government, get to be paired with agency leaders to to figure out an important challenge. So some fellows are experts in different aspects. Some fellows could be, experts say in data. Some fellows may be experts in digital transformation, some fellows are entrepreneurs some of them are designers. So a fellow is most successful when they are able to be paired with that agency leader and and tackle, you know, challenges from, you know, using a lot of their expertise, what they what they know from industry and share that with federal partners so they so we can build better better government for the people so it's not a straight you know as a fellow you get to do X, Y and Z. It's truly like a very unscripted environment where the fellows are really set up to to assist in in, in solving for for the public. And that takes many different shapes and forms. Yeah. Let me turn our jump in here The cool thing about the Presidential Innovation Fellows, I think, is that they get to be embedded inside these agencies, all across government at really high levels. They're bringing is their expertise about how technology works in the real world. And then they're partnering with folks who are the subject matter experts on whatever the topic is. It might be health. It might be immigration, it might be education, it might be cybersecurity, it might be supporting veterans. And they embed there and are able to just bring best practices from the private sector into government. And so while they're doing that, they're also, I think of it always as upskilling our government teams. So it really is kind of doing a tour of duty, of public service and it's hugely valuable for the country, but I think it's really valuable for the for the participants as well, because technologists love nothing more than really hard problems. Right. And really big impact. Those are two things that really highly motivate folks that are in the tech world. And government definitely has big, gnarly problems and there is no place to make a bigger impact. So let me make sure that I am understanding this right so our listeners can understand it. So you've got a Presidential Innovation Fellow a PIF as we call it, is it, which is an individual, and they're going to work in an agency, in the federal government to solve a particular problem. Come in, bring your expertise to this agency and just go for it because you've got a big problem we need you to solve. Is that do I understand that correctly? And do these people know what problem they're going coming into solved? Great question, Rob, and I think you describe it right this are Individuals are here to innovate for a year or two and and truly make the most out of that experience. As Robin mentioned, this is this is a transformational experience for the individuals because getting to know government, learning about the type of impact that, you know, one can make in in all of these federal agencies, if you think about it, every agency could be its own, you know, Fortune 500 company and the fellows get to be embedded in these places and truly make drive change alongside federal partners. So so your particular question was like, do they know what their what they're getting into? Yes and no. So part of the part of how we bring the fellows is that we we are really competitive process. And actually May 15th we open up our applications for our next cycle. We bring them in cohorts so they not only get to learn a lot about their agency, but they also get to have an instant community because they are brought in with a lot of other innovators that are also going to spend that year or two in in federal and federal government. So the process is competitive. We interview the fellows and we or the participants, the individuals are interested in this exciting opportunity and we we make sure that they have, of course, the talent, the skill. These are senior individuals with a track record of of driving change in an industry or in academia or somewhere. But we have to, you know, check for that. But we also work with agency partners and we identify the different challenges that could be out there. And those, as Robin mentioned, are vast. And we have different problems each year that we are matching a fellow to. And the key word here is match. So, you know, perhaps I go through the process of applying to the program and at some point I will be interviewing with a federal agency, with a with a leader, you know, an agency. And this individual sometimes may have a very clear approach and how to to tackle events. It could be through like, you know what, we have to figure this through a data strategy. And sometimes this federal partner is more of it's more open ended. So so what I am really, really looking for is individuals that can thrive in an unscripted type of environment, and they also are okay with ambiguity. So, yes, the fellows do get to know what agency they are going to be placed on and, you know, a little bit of that problem statement. But it's up to them to come in and truly define what the work is going to be like. And they do that by by talking and collaborating with the people that they are next to as a embark upon this challenge of public service. What type of experts are these? Are these, you know, the computer programmers or what? What do they do? What are you looking for? What am I looking for? So I'm looking for designers, entrepreneurialism, technologists within technology, the many you know, we're looking for people with experience in cloud infrastructure, people with experience in digital transformation as we're looking for leaders and people that have like a and a track record, you know, sometimes they may be a designer that, you know, has done the digital transformation and has focused on, you know, data science. So, you know, it's it's not as I'm looking only for engineers, I'm looking for leaders. Yes, of course, engineers. You know, they're they're up for the challenge. But I'm looking for really leaders that can have a subject matter expertise for sure. What I'm mainly looking for is individual is that really are our leaders and can and can tackle things from multiple angles and truly advise and and and get to solve, you know, these big challenges. Robin why do you think someone would want to what's the payoff? And I don't mean financially necessarily, but what is the payoff to come in and do civic technology versus going to work for a Fortune 500 because they're being wooed? I do know I mean, there are some layoffs going on. We've you know, it's not the most stable environment right now in tech out there. But what can you share with us? What what about an individual makes them a good fit to come in and be a part of this program? Yeah, that's a great question. Here's here's what I think. I think all of us want to be part of something bigger than ourselves and do something that has an impact for positively for our community. And it's, you know, serving in government is really the a great way to do that. I think a lot of technologists don't know how to do how to get in the door. They're curious. They're kind of vaguely interested in how they can help their communities and this gives them a pathway to do that. I mean, it turns out that folks in technology are just just as committed to doing something for their communities and wanting to serve as folks who join the military. You know, frankly, that they just have a different skill set that they're bringing to the table. So we want to we want to make pathways for all Americans to be able to give back to their communities and their country. And we think this is a great way to do it. Yeah, I talk about it all the time as a tour of duty in the same way people go into the military and serve a tour. This is going in government, serving tours. If you think about how our country was established a long time ago, our founders didn't didn't anticipate that there was a class of people that ruled and another class of people that followed it was that this whole experiment in democracy is up to all of us to raise our hand at some point, take part in that. And so it's fantastic to have folks with the skill set want to raise their hands and be part of giving back. By the way, let me just let me just say one other thing. Maybe Rebeca knows the numbers, but a huge percentage of folks who started out as Presidential Innovation Fellows decided to stay in government. I think it's like 40 or 50%, maybe more. Do you do you know that, Rebeca? I do. I it's it's more than 50%. And I love how you're saying, like how this is a way for people to get into the door. The Presidential Innovation Fellows program is not necessarily designed for people to stay, but voila people do and they do because they get they get excited about the possibilities, the impact at scale that Robin was talking about earlier, changing the way a little part of the the journey of a service can impact millions of lives and let me give you an example. We have a fellow at USDA that is part of the the WIC program, The Women's Infants and Children Program. And she is doing work through through a marketing perspective. So, you know, you asked me before what type of people marketers to we like marketers as well. But she is part of this program. And just imagine, this program has 2.2 million users every month. So, you know, figuring out ways in which we can provide more services for this, individuals have an impact that can be as extreme as that. So but to to go back to a you know, people that have stayed in in in government through the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, we have the chief technology officer of the VA is a former PIF. We have also the the chief data officer of the United States is a is a former PIF a lot of fellows again get super excited about what they are able to do about the possibilities and decide that this is a very rewarding type of opportunity for them and and decide to stay. I imagine it's a great gateway to amazing things inside the government with the with a federal career or if you go back to industry, I mean having on your resume Presidential Innovation Fellow even if you don't know what that means, it sounds pretty darn impressive. So I would want that on my resume. I imagine that opens doors out in industry as well. So I don't think you can lose either way, Robin, because, you know, you're the Administrator. You see the big picture, you see it from the top. When you think about these PIFs coming in, what what is your hope for technology in our government right now? What would you love to see someone come in and do? What do we need right now? What are the biggest needs that the government has and that the GSA can help? Well, great question there. There are no end to to the type of needs. I think the thing that strikes me is we really want to in the president's management agenda, addresses this, figure out how to have a better customer experience. We call it. And if you think about that, we all kind of know what that looks like because we use these digital tools every day in our regular lives. And so what we need in the government is to make sure that we provide that same kind of easy to use, secure, delightful, simple digital experience when folks are interacting with government. So if you think about what it will take to get there, there are lots of different kinds of talent we need. We need designers, we need content people. We need obviously cybersecurity people, we need engineers, we need folks who understand legacy technology systems because to upgrade a lot of these things, you need to move away from, you know, on prem, big storage to to cloud. So we need folks who understand that. So increasingly as well, where we need folks who understand AI because those are big issues that every agency is is looking at and cross-government. So yeah, they're the needs, the needs are endless and that means the opportunities are fantastic as well. But it is a very big focus of President and the entire administration on how to have that customer experience be improved. And, and to me that encompasses pretty much every one of these talents that folks come to the table with from from the technology field. I imagine we have listeners right now that are just chomping at the bit. They can't they they never knew this program existed. They're pretty certain that they can help. They want to be a part of it. We want to talk about how they can be. But before we do, before we jump into that, I wanted to ask we're talking we were talking about these applicants would be these PIFs are they're pretty high level individuals in maybe mid-career are there opportunities for perhaps the technologists that are just coming out of school or maybe just, you know, don't have the experience that these others have, but they've got ideas, they're bright, they're excited and they're motivated. Is there opportunities for lower level technologists? Yeah, let me take this one because we are recruiting people in the government at every level. We want entry level folks who are technologists. We have ways to do that. One is a relatively new program called the U.S. Digital Corps, and it's a two year fellowship. If you think about it a little bit like the Peace Corps. But so early, early career folks sometimes who want to be able to make an impact and this is a way to get in and do that and against the same sets of skills that we're looking for that would be in the PIF program. We have other either more permanent positions in government teams called the Center of Excellence and 18F we have a thing at GSA called the Technology Transformation Service, where all of these technologists are housed. And so, yes, there are tons of opportunities for folks and again, for those who just want to kind of do a a short tour of duty, we have that for folks who want federal careers. We have that for folks who want maybe a four year or eight year potential term. We've got those those entry ways as well. So we are looking for technologists of all stripes. Well, this is exciting because I think a lot of people, they just don't know about these opportunities and I hope they know about them now and they're starting to learn about these opportunities. The more people know, the better decisions they can make. Rebesca, can you share a little bit specifically about how, you know, how does this process you said it's opening, I think you said on May 15th. Where do they go to to apply? Yes. So www.pif.gov and that will get the access to our application. And we encourage people to apply May 15th to 23rd of June is the time the period where the Presidential Innovation Fellows program has their application open. We're going to be having information sessions. We also receive inquiries and we respond to them through our email and that is pif-applications@gsa.gov. Well, thank you for sharing that. As we close, Robin, this is your chance to make a pitch. You're talking to some of the best and brightest out there. What would you tell them? Come help your government. Th. is this. This is an incredible opportunity we need. We need your help. Our country needs your help doing things that help government deliver better for our people. And now we're living through this really unique moment where there is both momentum and money at the same time to work on really, really important things. So whether you care about the environment and sustainability, whether you care about equity, whether you care about make having things made in America, investing in America, whether you care about privacy, whether you care about the world of artificial intelligence, and where that's going to go, and whether you care about getting benefits in health care to the people who need them or veterans. There is no better way to make an impact on these things that are really going to change the course of our our communities and our country. And so please come. We have we have a welcome door for technologists is super exciting work. And the, you know, everybody from the President on down through the administration understands how important this is. And that's unusual. Doesn't always happen. So it's time to take advantage of it. It sounds like there's never been a better time and the gate is about to be open May 15th. So get out there and apply. We'll make sure that links are available to everyone. I can't thank you both enough for helping us learn so much about the important work that the General Services Administration and specifically the Presidential Innovation Fellows are doing to improve government, technology and services. From you, Robin, we learned about GSA's critical role in delivering effective and efficient government through its leadership in technology and acquisition and how their work impacts our daily lives in ways we may not even realize. And Rebeca, you gave us an inside look at the incredible work that the Presidential Innovation Fellows are doing to tackle some of the nation's biggest challenges by using their tech skills to solve public problems. Be sure to tune into our next episode when we talk to some Presidential Innovation Fellows, we'll get a firsthand look in some concrete examples of how these bright individuals are leveraging their expertise to drive change across various federal agencies. I hope this episode has inspired you to learn more about technologies changing the way our government works and how you can get involved in making a difference. Remember to subscribe to our podcast and visit gsa.gov/podcast for more information or to suggest a topic or guest, send us an email at gsadoesthat@gsa.gov. I'm your host, Rob Trubia. Our executive producer is Max Stempora. Special thanks to all the people who made this first episode happen. GSA Does That!? A production of the U.S. General Services Administration, Office of Strategic Communication. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time on GSA Does That!?