732 results found
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Legal decisions & legislation should be public & searchable
Today legal decisions and even legislation itself is often closed behind "walled gardens" and hard to search, or even copyrighted so it cannot be easily cited and re-used. Legal decisions and legislation should be open and available to all. The specifics of redaction due to personal or other security would need to be decided.
4 votes -
Bring Government IT Operations back "in-house"
Many, if not most, federal IT projects and their subsequent operation are handled by contractors and vendors. While the individuals managing these services are quite competent, the management overhead and inflexibility brought about by the contractor management process makes these operations very inflexible and slow to change.
Bringing these operations back in-house and building an engineering driven organization that can move quickly to provide serve the quickly changing technology needs could save billions in wasted money and time.
13 votes -
Prioritize data privacy
Just about every other industrialized country has a national agency with the job of protecting personal data privacy. While that model might not work in the U.S., the CTO should prioritize working (along with the FTC) to investigate privacy risks, set standards, and educate the public and policymakers.
15 votes -
Support technical education
The nation's future is created by kids. I prefer smart, broadly-educated kids do this work versus narrow-minded, uneducated fools.
11 votes -
Participate in tech standard-setting organizations
Stakeholder organizations develop standards for emerging technology and interoperability all the time. They shape our technological world more than any law in Washington, but the federal government doesn't contribute to their work. This is Larry Lessig's point in his book Code, and Joel Reidenberg writes about it too.
The CTO should engage with standard-setting organizations -- to learn from them, to contribute government perspectives to them, and then to support the results of their efforts.
3 votes -
1 vote
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Force cable TV providers to use ala carte channel pricing
Cable TV providers are famous for charging consumers for channels we don't need or want. Ala carte pricing would allow people to choose what they do and don't want, and only pay for what they use.
14 votes -
Save money, improve stability, security by switching to OSS
Switch to Open Source Software to save millions of dollars in licensing fees. Save more money in potential costs resulting from security holes, and even more money in stability.
26 votes -
Staff and fund a "public media 2.0" initiative
This effort would combine efforts to make broadband widely available and affordable with funding for participatory digital news and information projects and K-12 media literacy training.
1 vote -
3 votes
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16 votes
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standardize on Ruby on Rails for custom web app development
There's a reason that Ruby on Rails dominates the world of custom web application development: it's a best-of-breed technology with massive uptake by some of the brightest, most enthusiastic open-source people behind it.
43 votes -
8 votes
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compete for / hire engineering grads the way goog / msft do!
The government should be looking for the best and brightest..not the ones that are left over...they should spend whatever it takes and operate like a startup! Reward these people with a salary plus equity so they'll be incentivized to create new developments instead of stagnate in their government secured roles.
14 votes -
Require independent review by technical experts
Over the last 8 years, many governmental projects have failed to take into account basic principles of systems and software engineering, design, computer security, and privacy. The REAL ID proposal, for example, stored personal data in unencrypted form, relied on databases which didn't yet exist, and ignored the questions of false positives due to inaccurate data. Independent review by experts can detect these issues early in the process, which either gives time for them to be addressed or allows the project to be rethought far more cheaply.
60 votes -
2 votes
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Gov to be ran on 100% free software
Premise: Software is licensed to distribute the overhead of its initial development, the cost of which few organizations could afford. Because all government software purchases are made with public funds, the public should be licensed to use it.
Proposition: All future investments are to be made in software that is licensed to grant use and source code access to all governed subjects. Security will be maintained with the use of trusted concepts, including asymmetric cryptography, and not rely on the obscurity of closed source software. Where viable further development of existing operating systems and applications will be funded. Where not…
2,428 votes -
name an underchief of usability and information architecture
Whether it is the documentation of the government, the legislative process, voting systems, tax forms, you name it - the whole thing could use a 21st century information architect applying a user centered design approach.
6 votes -
Promote computer and Internet literacy
The value of the Internet is directly related to the number of people who are comfortable using and contributing to it.
Computer and Internet literacy is more than understanding how to use a mouse and a web browser. It also means understanding online social interactions, effectively finding information and people, protecting against fraud and other malicious practices, and thinking critically about the information discovered on the Internet.
Computer and Internet literacy should be taught in childhood education, and in continuing education for adults who are coming online. As the Internet becomes an increasingly powerful tool of modern business and culture,…
58 votes -
4 votes