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Aneesh Chopra: Thank you for visiting the Open Innovators Toolkit.
I have had the pleasure of serving as the President's
Chief Technology Officer for nearly three years,
and one thing that came out loud and clear is that we have a
tremendous amount of opportunity to tap into the expertise of the
American people to solve big problems,
and to do so in a manner that could also lead to jobs and
industries of the future.
What I'd like to do is introduce you to the toolkit so that you
can put it to use in your community or in
your neighborhood.
Over the past three years the President has asked us to solve
two big challenges: One, to create a more open and
transparent government; and two, to find ways to create the jobs
and industries of the future -- what he refers to as a strategy
for American innovation.
This toolkit describes the techniques that policymakers
can use to achieve both of these very, very important objectives.
Over the past three years, we've seen a number of activities at
the agency level, at the federal level,
certainly at the state and local levels, too,
that are simple evidence that these techniques can
be effective if put to use the right way.
There are four basic categories in the innovators toolkit.
First, we have found a way to open up data for
innovators and entrepreneurs.
Second, we have taken on the role of government acting as
an impatient convenor.
You may think of this as government with a lower case G.
Third, we have gotten the authority,
at least in Washington, to initiate challenges, prizes,
and competitions, so that we're paying for results and inspiring
everyday folks to engage and participate in some of the
biggest challenges of our day.
And last, but certainly not least,
we're finding new and creative ways to attract talent -- those
that understand the power of technology, data and innovation,
as well as a commitment to public policy.
And those folks that sit at that intersection are increasingly
coming to work not just at the federal level,
but at state and local levels as well.
It's an exciting story and an exciting movement.
I want to share just a few words about each of these elements,
and you'll learn more detail here at the Open
Innovators Toolkit.
On opening up data for innovators and entrepreneurs,
we have seen just an exciting array of applications that are
built by taking advantage of government data.
What's fascinating about this is just our own weather experience.
Many of you are familiar with the fact that we have weathermen
and we have weather apps on your cell phones,
and we have newscasters that you watch on TV,
but the source data that they all refer to comes out of a
federal agency called NOAA.
NOAA chose many, many years ago that it would offer unlimited
rights to individuals who'd like to take that information and
commercialize them into products and services.
It's estimated that the weather industry is at least two billion
dollars plus, creating jobs and industries of the future,
but built on top of weather information.
In fact we've seen most recently a new form of crop insurance
come out because they've taken the data from weather and
applied more modern technologies to assess the risk of an adverse
weather event on crops.
This movement from our weather experience has now expanded into
health, energy, and education, and you can see this in a set of
communities that we've launched: Health.data.gov,
Energy.data.gov, and even Education.Data.gov,
not to mention a number of others that are soon to launch
or are already available at the Data.gov platform.
In these communities, our federal agencies are publishing
data that is meant for anyone to use with no limitation,
often in machine readable form so that individuals cannot just
read the information but actually put them to use
in applications that they can develop.
This technique has seen tremendous innovation in
health and energy and education, and again,
if you visit the toolkit you'll see explicit examples
in case studies.
My favorite happens to be the work that's been done in the
Veterans Administration, liberating government data
for veterans called Blue Button, that now is scaled to the
Medicare population as well as our active duty military.
With the touch of a simple button,
individuals are empowered to take their own data in a safe,
secure way, whether it be health information or in the case of
the Veterans Administration, Veterans Affairs,
are information about their service history.
Once that individual is empowered with that data there
are now dozens of third-party applications that are saying we
will help you find a job in the civilian economy.
We will help you retain a healthier lifestyle and support
you to ensure that you're living longer and healthier.
These are the kinds of products and services that come out of an
open data ecosystem.
Acting as an impatient convenor, we've seen the power of the
bully pulpit in the context of a whole range of initiatives that
we've launched, most notably how do we bring folks together to
solve some of the thorny issues of security and
privacy on the internet.
We had a challenge in the health care community: Can we use safe,
secure e-mail to share medical information between two trusted
providers, or the provider and a patient.
In 90 days, with the role of convenor at the center,
we saw the private sector step up to the plate and design
specifications for safe, secure e-mail that now a year or so
later, are widely available to individuals at radically
low prices.
Third, we spoke about the importance of prizes,
challenges, and competitions.
Here we've seen the ingenuity of the American people in
unbelievably creative ways, from solving where ten undisclosed
red balloons are located through a DARPA Red Balloon Challenge in
celebration of the internet, to more substantive questions about
whether or not we can harness big data applications to help
our patent examiners look for in reviewing
prior art applications.
Third, or last but certainly not least,
we spoke about the importance of bringing in the right talent.
Our Food and Drug Administration has invented a new initiative
called The Innovation Pathway that would allow breakthrough
medical devices that solve big national challenges the chance
to see a separate process to go through,
hopefully a more effective and efficient one,
but without compromising patient safety.
That Innovation Pathway is now being developed not just by
government employees, but today, thanks to an entrepreneurship in
residence program, the former CEO of Medtronic, Bill Hawkins,
Dean Kamen, the godfather of all matters of invention from first
robotics to the Segway, have all volunteered their time,
in some cases as advisors and in others,
side by side with government employees to implement that
Innovation Pathway.
We have great expectations for this new tool and we're excited
about this opportunity scaling to our Immigration
Service and others.
This is a portfolio that's just getting started.
We are hopeful that we'll add more case studies and evidence
so that you can see what works for you, but in the meantime,
peruse the toolkit, get to know these opportunities,
and see if we can scale up this open innovation philosophy.
Let's solve our biggest challenges, America,
and let's create the jobs and industries of the future
at the same time.
We will solve it here, to paraphrase Secretary Bryson,
and we'll sell our solutions everywhere around the world
because these are global, global challenges.
Thank you for your time, and we look forward to serving you
through the toolkit.