New Gov Website: Challenge.gov
Top technology officials announced the launch of challenge.gov, a new site for public and private collaboration on problem solving, at a government technology conference on Tuesday.
"Challenge.gov marks a dramatic departure from business as usual," said Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer of the Obama Administration.
Orchestrated by the General Services Administration, the new site will allow government agencies to post challenges for citizens of all stripes to tackle. Members of the public interested in participating could win as much as $5 million if they come up with fuel efficient vehicles that exceed 100 miles per gallon in the "Progressive Automotive X" challenge. Backed by the Department of Energy in partnership with Progressive and the X Prize Foundation, the automotive challenge is one of 35 challenges posed by more than 15 agencies already up on the website.
$12,000 in prizes is available to people interested in submitting healthy recipes for school lunches as an extension of the First Lady's Let's Move campaign. Under the "Green Flight Challenge," a team could win $1.5 million for building a full-scale aircraft that can fly 200 miles in less than two hours using the energy equivalent of less than one gallon of gasoline per occupant.
The new site is part of the administration's broader initiative to use prizes and challenges to spur innovation.
The announcement came during a panel about closing the technology gap between the public and private sector featuring Chopra and Vivek Kundra, the administration's Chief Information Officer.
According to Kundra, the government will "close the technology gap by introducing Darwinian pressure in government IT." The ultimate goal, Kundra says, "is to make sure that the dollars we're spending on government technology produce the dividends that the American people expect."
Increasing the amount of available spectrum is a top priority, Chopra said. A potential shortage of spectrum "keeps us up at night," he added.
Spectrum is the medium through which mobile devices, such as smartphones, tap into broadband.
Both tech officials also emphasized the importance of cloud computing in the future of government IT.
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