To close the technology gap between the government and the private sector, the US government takes a move by updating the government’s web portal to become more accessible by the people.
In a conference called on Friday, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra of General Services Administration revealed that the White House is taking necessary steps to redesign the government portal, particularly the USA.gov, to become more like a commercial web portal. Its main purpose is to bring up to date the government’s existence in the web. "It [was] essentially just a collection of links with a bunch of pictures thrown up there. It has been engineered, unfortunately, for the bureaucracy rather than the American people,” quips Kundra.
The website redesigning includes more series of applications that will exhibit relevant and important government information needed by the people.
In an advance technology society like the US, most people rely on the information they need on the internet. Many people are inclined to using different web applications that helps [the people] in obtaining relevant data. This is the reason why the government comes up with an idea to redesign and make the government portal like a leading online commercial apps today.
An example of an application is that of an iPhone courtesy from the Transportation Safety Administration which allows an end-user to check online flight schedules, safe traveling tips and guidelines while on-board in the plane. Another application is the Android, developed by Consumer Product Safety Commission, which supplies the information about product recalls and safety advisories from the website Recall.gov.
The government had seen the spread of using social media, blogging and online events as an easy way of communication. Thus, this move is the government’s initiative to answer the increasing demand of the people for the easy access to government’s portal. In this way, the government is able to reach out to its people especially the private sector.
The new apps will be more like mobile so that people can easily access it whether they are at home, work or at travel.
Deputy Director for Office of Management and Budget Jeffrey Zients expressed the importance of full utilization of technology: "The federal government for the most part has missed out on these gains because it's too often failed to take advantage of information technology."
On the other hand, Kundra adds that this will be a step-by-step process to build the new apps and to create the government extension for over 24,000 federal websites. "We're not going to build all the apps. We ... recognize that we don't have a monopoly on the best ideas,” he added.
You must log in to post a comment.