You don't often hear the term "badass innovator" associated with government work, but that's what federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park says he's looking for:
... the baddest of the badasses out there to come to the government for focused six-to-12 month tours of duty to partner with our best innovators on game-changing projects . . . The idea is to work in a lean startup mode [and to] score a lot of significant points within six months.
Park was announcing the Presidential Innovations Fellows program, which will pair "top innovators from the private sector, non-profits, or academia with federal government employees to collaborate on game-changing solutions." These 20 Web and mobile developers will work on five short-term assignments, focusing on issues such as reducing the government’s online footprint, making agency data more accessible and rendering federal contracting less onerous for small businesses. At Disrupt 2012 Park explained that he's looking for the first five people a startup would hire. As described by TechCrunch:
...a mix of people with technical expertise, an accomplished history, and a passion for disruption. Technical skills for some team members are definitely important (UI/UX experience, coding, etc). But, a history of causing some type of disruption is definitely key. If you’ve managed to make your industry more transparent, participatory, or collaborative, definitely indicate that on the second round application (which will be later emailed to applicants). Last, a passion for using technology for social change, especially open data, should probably make its way into the application.
If you're interested, submit your initial application on the program's
Web page.
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