The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, featuring film, music and technology in Austin, Texas, provides an opportunity for government officials to discuss innovation within the federal IT realm.
U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith was one of this year’s government speakers, who spoke on March 16 about “how innovation happens” with Google Executive Chairman and Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson.
Smith argued that the gap between the public sector and Silicon Valley is closing.
“In this country where we make Google, we make Amazon [and]we make Facebook — these kinds of amazing products and consumer services — why aren’t these people in government?” she said. “What we’re seeing is that they are beginning to come.”
Smith, Schmidt and Isaacson agreed that one of the surest paths to innovation is to increase inclusion and diversity for the team or project in question. They cited several ways to advance those goals, including:
- Working to eliminate “connectivity deserts,” where Internet access is limited or unavailable
- “Debugging at the local level,” to engage and connect local communities with one another
- Eliminating unconscious gender biases
- Increasing entrepreneurial education at both the primary and secondary levels
- Making higher education accessible and free to all citizens
- Reforming education systems to expose children to technical skills, such as coding, at an early age
