Revisiting "Government Efficiency"
What we've lost, and what we've learned
18F and USDS — US federal government digital teams which delivered dramatically better digital services, and guided technology procurement towards better outcomes – were cut, in the name of government efficiency. In this session, former leaders from those teams will challenge conventional notions of “efficiency” and explore how we can modernize government with lasting impact.
They’ll tackle questions such as: Who gets to decide what efficiency looks like, and how should we measure it? Why do we default to importing technical talent or handing our systems to Big Tech, and what would it take to build more in-house capacity and embrace open-source, sovereign platforms? How do we build and sustain support for these initiatives, knowing that deep change doesn’t happen on four-year cycles?
