U.S. Government Challenged By Techie Talent Gap

All levels of U.S. government have taken some sort of approach to opening data and enhancing processes through technological advancement, but current and former Obama administration workers say there is still a major skills gap in the U.S. government around technological capabilities and understanding.

’We lack enough people who are data-literate and data-savvy, who are statistically trained, who have computer science [skills],’ said Beth Noveck, former White House Deputy CTO.

Former special assistant to President Obama Susan Crawford said this is a particularly crucial time to get techies involved in government, as government is more transparent and solution-oriented than ever before.

’We haven’t had a visible government before the open data movement, in concert with uses of very high capacity networks and more data-driven policy makers,’ Crawford said.

U.S. government Deputy CTO Alex Macgillivray said it’s easier than ever to get engaged in government without dedicating a decade of work to civic engagement. Techies can opt in and out of several initiatives.

’You can even contribute to federal source code, you can go talk about a regulation that’s important to you directly to the regulators,’ he said.

’There has not been a more exciting time to work in government at a local level, or at a federal level, in the last 100 years,’ Crawford added.