Presidential Innovation Fellows Program: Apply Now!

Fancy applying for something different? Applications are now being accepted for the Presidential Innovation Fellow Program!

Launched last year, the program the Presidential Innovation Fellows program recruits top innovators and entrepreneurs from the private sector for 6-12 month “tours of duty” in government to help develop innovative solutions in areas of national significance.

18 inaugural fellows arrived last August, and through partnering with government innovators, have been involved on five projects.

Some of these include:

• Open Data Initiatives have unleashed data from the vaults of the government as fuel for entrepreneurs and innovators to create new apps, products, and services that benefit the American people in myriad ways and contribute to job growth.
• RFP-EZ has created a new online marketplace and built tools that make it easier for innovative small tech businesses to bid on government contracts, while also making it easier for government contracting officers to identify the bids that offer the best value for taxpayers.
• Blue Button for America has moved personal health records ahead significantly by giving millions of veterans and other Americans massively improved, secure access to their own health information. 
• Better Than Cash is working with an array of foreign and non-governmental partners to transition “the last mile” of international development assistance payments from cash to electronic mobile money, resulting in increased funding transparency and more impact for American taxpayer dollars.
• MyUSA (formerly MyGov) has reimagined how citizens can interact with government, developing a prototype of an online system that allows people to more easily find and access the information and services that are right for them from across government.   

As stated in a recent blog post, the White House is also looking for:


"Applicants to work on the next phases of the Open Data Initiatives, MyData Initiatives (including Blue Button for America), RFP-EZ, and MyUSA projects. We are also inviting applications from those who would like to help launch the following new projects:

Disaster Response and Recovery will collaboratively build and “pre-position” critical tech tools ahead of future emergencies or natural disasters in order to mitigate economic damage and save lives.

Cyber-Physical Systems will work with government and industry to create standards for a new generation of inter operable, dynamic, and efficient “smart systems”—an “industrial Internet”—that combines distributed sensing, control, and data analytics to help grow the economy and new high-value American jobs.

21st Century Financial Systems will work to move the financial accounting systems of Federal agencies out of the era of large-scale, agency-specific implementations to one that favors more nimble, modular, scalable, and cost-effective approaches.

Innovation Toolkit will develop a suite of tools that empowers our Federal workforce to respond to national priorities more quickly and more efficiently.

Development Innovation Ventures will help enable the US government to identify, test, and scale breakthrough solutions to the world’s toughest problems.

We are looking for incredibly talented, entrepreneurial people from a diverse array of backgrounds and with a wide range of experiences. Many of the Fellowship roles require coding and other tech skills, but not all do. We are also looking for gifted and accomplished change agents with skills in user experience design, product management, project management, business development, operations reengineering, and more.  In a nutshell, we are looking for people who can help make big things happen rapidly to advance the public good."

For more information on the program and to apply click here.