One of the principle goals of Cloud adoption for the USA Government is to drive more and better Digital Government experiences.
The objective is to unleash and harness the ‘True Power of a Digital Government‘, fundamentally transforming the very system of Government.
As NextGov reports there is also a hard legislative requirement to offer citizen-centric online services.
The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, or 21st Century IDEA, passed Congress and was signed by President Trump on Dec. 20. The law requires all future government services to be fully digitized and accessible to the public, with specific action plans in place 180 days from the law’s enactment, or June 18, 2019.
Also the new Connected Government Act requires that agencies’ websites are mobile friendly. GSA’s MobileGov Community of Practice supports agency efforts to make government information and services available to anyone, anytime and on any device.
The concept of ‘Universal Design‘ has been coined to define an approach that ensure this accessibility goes beyond just technology considerations, also factoring in the need to meet the needs of users with disabilities.
A number of resources are available to support agencies achieve compliance with these requirements, such as the USWDS – US Web Design System, a standardized approach and resource library for building USA Government web sites, as well as a Digital Services Playbook.
18F also just released Accessibility for Teams, a guide for embedding accessibility and inclusive design practices into your team’s workflow.
Cloud-Powered Transformation
The Cloud offers a platform for accelerating adoption of these practices.
As CIO.gov notes the relaunched site made use of the services infrastructure built up to support Cloud-powered digital modernization, with the website transitioned to the Federalist Publishing Platform to take advantage of the commercial solutions offered though Cloud.gov, among other services.
With a cross-section of local and international speakers, an AWS panel session explores a number of Digital Government scenarios powered by their Cloud services.
Aylesbury Vale District Council is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to revolutionize interactions with their constituents with Alexa skills, Kentucky’s Louisville Metro is building an open source cloud mobility system in collaboration with other cities, Amazon, and Waze, in hopes of empowering officials to make data-driven decisions that positively impact their citizens.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) speaks to the launch of their Person Centric Query Service (PCQS), a massive platform combining various branches of data within the US federal system to create a consolidated view of an individual’s past interaction with the US immigration system.
