2015年5月27日水曜日

USG Girl Geek Dinner

I joined the USG Girl Geek Dinner tonight.

Speakers were:
-Ann Mei Chang (Executive Director, U.S. Global Development Lab, USAID)
-Stephanie Rivera (Director of Business Strategy, 18F)
-Hillary Hartley (Deputy Executive Director & Co-Founder, 18F)
-Jennifer Anastasoff (Founding Member, U.S. Digital Service)
-Todd Park (Technology Advisor, White House)

Some quotes from Ann:

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-Before going to work for the government, Ann worked at tech companies in Silicon Valley (Apple and Google) but she had a yearning to help people who were underprivileged, and joined USAID. She now runs USAID's US Global Development Lab, bringing in Silicon Valley's best practices to the government.
-The U.S. Global Development Lab is a new entity within USAID that brings together a diverse set of partners to discover, test, and scale breakthrough solutions to achieve what human progress has only now made possible - the end of extreme poverty by 2030.
-Ebola Protective Suit Design Challenge's winner was Johns Hopkins University working with wedding dress designer to design protective suits! (Article: A wedding gown designer gave the Ebola hazmat suit a makeover) Traditional suits (Personal Protective Equipment or PPE) took 31 steps for doffing process whereas the proposed one only has 8, reducing removal time from 20 minutes to less than 5 minutes.





Some quotes from Todd:

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-USDS is teams of problem solvers making government services simple, effective, and efficient- and "is on a mission to make the U.S. Government not suck at technology" ;) Also calling it "high tech Peace Corps". First example was healthcare.gov, currently expanding to VA. Planning to expand to 500 people.
-USDS has 3 pillars:
  1. USDS headquarters with 40 people
  2. USDS people in other federal government departments
  3. 18F
-At the USDS, they're changing lives more and more everyday in a profound way. Within the first year of launching healthcare.gov, 10 million Americans had health insurance. You can help the lives of 16 million people with Silicon Valley's best practices.
-USDS aims to develop & radically improve services for veterans, children, immigrants, elderly & disabled.
-Talent and diversity is key- getting the right people means a win.

Some quotes from Hillary:

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-18F helps agencies deliver on their mission through the development of digital and web services, through building effective, user-centric digital services focused on the interaction between government and the people and businesses it serves. From their website: "We’re doers, recruited from the most innovative corners of industry and the public sector, who are passionate about driving efficiency, transparency, and savings for government agencies and the American people. We make easy things easy, and hard things possible."
-Design is the strategy, can transform business and policy by showing and not telling.
-We do user testing for everything. We MVP everything.
-Delivery is the strategy - just start.
1. Be the change - lead by example
2. Think like designer
3. Data-driven
4. Agile practices
5. Open by default (18F's Open Source Policy)

Hillary's blog post here actually captures some of them "One Year In and Looking Forward"
-Putting the needs of the American people first
-Being design-centric, agile, open, and data-driven
-Working in the open to make our products stronger
-Deploying our products early and often

Cupcakes ;)

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer. -Fumi Yamazaki

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