Another ObamaCare legacy: The federal government just got its own IT consultancy
On Monday, the Obama administration officially inaugurated the U.S. Digital Service, a sort of tech consulting firm housed in the White House Office of Management and Budget. The first administrator of USDS is Mikey Dickersons, an engineer and former Google site reliability manager who was a pivotal player in salvaging Healthcare.gov after its calamitous launch last October. As part of the government, Dickerson and his team will try to prevent or fix other flailing government websites and digital services.
The USDS geek squad won't design and build websites — that's the purview of individual departments, with help from the new 18F unit of the General Services Administration — but rather drop in and troubleshoot existing problems and, in the longer term, help government agencies prevent glitches and make all federal online services more customer-friendly. His team will be "trying to get in front of these things more in the future," Dickerson said, "to make the strike team less necessary in the future."
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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