TechCrunch writes that the new White House innovation fellows program, which is part of the US Government's Digital Strategies which I discuss here, is "flooded" with applications.
Well, there's 600.
Normally, with what we could call the "legacy" White House Fellows program there are 1,000 applications. A number like 600 or even 1,000 is not a "flood" but that's understandable, given that most people cannot stop their lives and go work even for a stipend for the federal government for six or twelve months.
So now on top of that program, which could include computer programmers like any profession, there will be a special, accelerated add-on just for geeks.
I was surprised that Todd Park didn't explain the new Innovation Fellows by analogy with the White House Fellows (maybe because someone might wonder why geeks were getting an inside track).
That's a program I know something about, because back in the 1990s, I made it as a National Finalist to the White House Fellows program -- the last batch of 35 or so from which they pick 16 or so. It's very tough and very competitive and I never expected to get beyond the regional competition because you are competing against everybody from physicians who are curing cancer to Navy SEALS -- it's a program for mid-career professionals.
The regular White House Fellows program accepts applications in January, then in March, you have the regional finals, then if you are selected, you apply to the national finals by May, and the final competition is in June. So there are about six months for the judges to check through you application -- and as you are going to be working in the White House, your background is examined as well.
I struggled as best I could during three days of final examination by the judges, surrounded by people who had circumnavigated the globe -- twice -- on homemade rafts and who fed all the homeless of San Francisco as a hobby while they rehabilitated abused children and published books. My claim to fame was that I was self-employed and had translated a lot of books and worked on a lot of human rights cases.
I felt I might have a shot at this when Ted Sorensen, one of the judges, began complaining about Yegor Gaidar's economic shock therapy and I countered by explaining that in fact it hadn't been implemented as planned given all the remaining subsidies and was merely a subject of media hysteria.
But then I had a brain freeze when Gen. Wesley Clark (!) asked me if I could name my favourite cabinet member in the Bush Administration. I thought about Jack Kemp, wondering if I could make an analogy from a field I knew better, that he was a lot like Politburo member Yegor Ligachev -- they threw him at housing figuring that would keep him out of harm's way. I was crawling mentally through other names I might mention and the pages just weren't coming up. Having to talk my way out of a corner, I suddenly burst out with a brain wave: "Bush himself was my own favourite member in the Bush Administration's cabinet," I ad-libbed, even though I didn't care for Bush and couldn't think of a single thing to say why he'd be my "favourite". Gen. Clark nailed me there, even though I answered his question about Chinese-Soviet relations OK.
It got worse. Soon I was being asked to devise a program to employ inner-city youth by one of Hillary's old room-mates and girlfriends, who also confronted me about a typo on my application.
By contrast, the Innovation Fellows has been announced with only weeks from the deadline, and likely no opportunity for either regional finals or rigorous questioning. They just need people in the program to show it off. They also promise something that White House fellows don't promise -- networking for anybody who even bothers to apply, even if they aren't chosen or even if they are interested in apps, but can't apply to the fellows now.
They can do this because there are conveyer belts and revolving doors already well placed between Silicon Valley and the federal government.
As for the projects they will work on (you don't get to think up your own), they all sound pretty anodyne -- one-button downloads of your health info or other info the government may have on you.
Here's one that does have promise, as Frederic Lardinois at TechCrunch has explained:
3. A PayPal for foreign aid, the “20% Campaign.” The federal government has a nasty habit of losing crates of cash and foreign aid while paying security forces and contract workers in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Park and VanRoekel hope the new system can better track the money trail, and therefore reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. One study suggests that India could save billions with electronic transfers, and the savings could be just as significant for the U.S
You know, I wish these geeks would FIRST work on a secure micropayments system for the Internet itself so that people other than themselves might be paid on it, before turning their eyes to poor people overseas who give them a bigger flash of self-importance.
But this is the Holy Grail of the Better-Worlders at Silicon Valley -- a way to put money into the hands of poor Third World people and by-pass governments with bureaucratic agencies like USAID or even NGO contractors. That is, that system when anyone of us can send money to someone in Zimbabwe to help them survive starts with systems like this where the federal government at least tries to deter waste on its own foreign aid.
Naturally, there are analog governance problems galore with these systems that you'd need entire other White House Fellow programs to fix. What happens when the engineers and coders all throughout the loop tap in and start stealing and diverting the electronic funds? All you have to do is think about Anonymous, which includes people working in the federal government and every other corporation in America, and how they took down Stratfor, claimed they would take from the rich and give to the poor, but in fact, as records of victims show, bought themselves the latest World of Warcraft edition or sent themselves cash advances.
Next, what happens when wealth is on phones? Phone holders become more vulnerable to highway robbery, abduction, torture, and killing as robbers then get their passwords and steal their gadgets and identities.
After that, what happens to the little economies of poor places that thrive on personal relations and aren't invaded by "economies of scale" and more globalized aggressive business? One guy with a phone and electronic cash deliveries puts everybody in his village selling melons out of business in a click. And the other people make a living...how? Charging cell phones in their huts on electric generators? Or will they sell their daughters into trafficking schemes using their mobile phones?
People in Silicon Valley always believe the next big Internet thing and gadget will strip out human greed and fraud -- or at least hide their own -- and never accelerate anyone else's. The Internet caused the Recession, however.
Or how about another promising "democratizer"? As Frederic says:
4. A small-business friendly process for securing government contracts, named RFP-EZ. Don’t have a DC-bureau or a cushy relationship with a senator? This program aims to give the small guy a shot at big contracts. Park argued in his talk that the government sometimes prefers savvy startups in Silicon Valley, who can save the government a lot more than the typical contractor.
Hm, so these are just small guys who are still on the old boys' network? And now you need more staff to sift their way through all the applications of the little guys rather than the larger entities with whom you already have a track record of compliance? And you're saving the government money?
As for the little guys, even an EZ RFP is likely to cause you to have to hire a new accountant versed just in the ways of accounting these government contracts, they are a bear. And do they require you first to spend your own money, then show receipts in a dedicated bank account to draw down the government tranche? How will that work out for you?
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