Big Data. Big Decisions
InformationWeek
Special Coverage Series


White House Seeks Tech Innovation Fellows

Program recruits innovators and entrepreneurs to work on "high impact" federal IT projects during six- to 12-month tours of duty.

IBM Smarter Cities Challenge: 10 Towns Raise Tech IQs
IBM Smarter Cities Challenge: 10 Towns Raise Tech IQs
(click image for larger view and for slideshow)
Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel and federal CTO Todd Park announced a new set of objectives for Round 2 of the White House's Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

The program, which recruits innovators and entrepreneurs from the private sector to work on "high impact" federal IT projects during six- to 12-month tours of duty, has been expanded to new project areas. The White House is currently accepting applications for the next round of Presidential Innovation Fellows to lead projects that include:

More Insights

Webcasts

More >>

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

-- Disaster Response and Recovery: The project will "pre-position" tech tools for disaster readiness in order to diminish economic damage and save lives.

-- Cyber-Physical Systems: A new generation of cyber-physical "smart systems" will be developed to help the economy and job creation. These systems will combine distributed sensing, control and data analytics.

-- 21st Century Financial Systems: The 21st Century Financial Systems initiative will transition agency-specific federal financial accounting systems to a more modular, scalable and cost-effective model.

-- Innovation Toolkit: A suite of tools will be created for federal workers, allowing them to become more responsive and efficient in their jobs.

-- Development Innovation Ventures: The Development Innovation Ventures project will address tough global problems by allowing the U.S. government to identify, test and scale new technologies.

[ Learn how the federal government innovates with less. Read Busting Through The Federal IT Budget Ceiling. ]

The fellowship program was first introduced in May 2012. After receiving 700 applications, the White House selected 18 fellows, who have been developing deliverables on five projects sponsored by different agencies: MyUSA (formerly known as MyGov), RFP-EZ, Open Data Initiatives, Blue Button and Better Than Cash. Each one is meant to make an impact. Open Data Initiatives, for example, use government data to create apps, products and services for citizens, while the RFP-EZ project provides an online marketplace and tools for small tech businesses to bid on government contracts.

In addition to seeking fellows to launch new initiatives, Round 2 is open to applicants interested in working on the next phases of existing federal projects. Many of the fellowship roles require coding and other tech skills; however, the program calls for those from various backgrounds, including product and project management, business development and operations re-engineering.

Attend Interop Las Vegas May 6-10, and attend the most thorough training on Apple deployment at the NEW Mac & iOS IT Conference. Join us in Las Vegas for access to 125+ workshops and conference classes, 350+ exhibiting companies, and the latest technology. Use Priority Code DIPR02 by Feb. 9 to save up to $500 off the price of Conference Passes. Register for Interop today!



Related Reading




Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

BYTE encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, BYTE moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. BYTE further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.

Follow InformationWeek

By The Numbers

What Are Your Primary Concerns About Using Big Data Software?

Base: 417 respondents at organizations using or planning to deploy data analytics, BI or statistical analysis software
Data: InformationWeek 2013 Analytics, Business Intelligence and Information Management Survey of 541 business technology professionals, October 2012

What Do You Think?

What's your attitude about SQL analysis on top of Hadoop?
We want fast, standard SQL analysis capabilities on Hadoop ASAP
Hadoop is for unstructured data; SQL is for relational databases
We'll give SQL on Hadoop a try, but relational DBs will remain the mainstay
Given strong SQL support on Hadoop, we'd nix the data warehouse
We're not interested in Hadoop
No opinion



Related Content

From Our Sponsor

Five Big Data Challenges and How to Overcome Them with Visual Analytics

Five Big Data Challenges and How to Overcome Them with Visual Analytics

Business leaders often need a visual snapshot of data to quickly grasp and use it. This paper identifies five challenges in presenting data and how visual analytics can resolve them. Solutions are suggested to overcome the challenges of: speed, data clarity, data quality, displaying meaningful results, and dealing with outliers.

Game-Changing Analytics: How IT Executives Can Use Analytics to Create Innovation and Business Success

Game-Changing Analytics: How IT Executives Can Use Analytics to Create Innovation and Business Success

Today's competitive advantage requires a deeper understanding of your business, your market and your customers. As an IT executive, you can drive that knowledge transformation. In this white paper, learn how to make decisions as a strategic business leader and three steps to begin an analytics initiative within your enterprise.

Data Visualization Techniques: From Basics to Big Data with SAS Visual Analytics

Data Visualization Techniques: From Basics to Big Data with SAS Visual Analytics

High-performance data visualization turns sophisticated analyses into meaningful graphics, leading to faster and smarter decision making. In this white paper, learn how visual analytics can transform big data, with additional features such as real-time functionality, mobile compatibility, robust applications for technical groups and accessibility for nontechnical users.

Big Data: Lessons from the Leaders

Big Data: Lessons from the Leaders

Financial performance, competitive advantage, operational efficiency, strategic decision making - every business goal can extract value from big data, and the time for doubt or inaction has long passed. In this Economist Intelligence Unit report, in-depth interviews with data pioneers reveal the link between the effective use of big data and the bottom line among other results.

Decision-Driven Data Management: A Strategy for Better Decisions with Better Data

Decision-Driven Data Management: A Strategy for Better Decisions with Better Data

Which came first, the data or the decision? This white paper makes the case for having a decision in mind, then tailoring big data's volume, variety and velocity to achieve business results such as overcoming customer dissatisfaction or creating well-informed strategies in real time.

Informationweek Reports

Research: The Big Data Management Challenge

Research: The Big Data Management Challenge

The challenge of big data is real, but most organizations don't differentiate 'big data' from traditional data, and nearly 90% of respondents to our survey use conventional databases as the primary means of handling data. We'll help you understand what constitutes big data (it's not just size) and the numerous management challenges it poses.