“I think Musk and DOGE has made it difficult in some respects by tarnishing some of the tools that CX relied on to make services better, including connecting data from different sources to reduce frictions and service delivery,” Donald Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told Nextgov/FCW.
In the wake of the Healthcare.gov crash, President Barack Obama established USDS, something he later described as “a SWAT team, a world-class technology office inside of the government” deployed to other agencies when needed.
The unit was a flagship organization in the civic tech movement, which emerged over a decade ago with the intent of improving government using technology, data and better design. On his first day back in office, Trump transformed USDS into the vehicle for billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE.
Set up with an ostensible focus on technology and a model of bringing outside talent into the government — similar to that of its predecessor — DOGE has led efforts to shrink the size of government and hoover up agency data. Government civic tech teams, including legacy employees at USDS itself and 18F, have been downsized or eliminated altogether.
Six months later, civic tech appears to be at a juncture, fi ..
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