Fedweek

New Innovation Office to Bring Business Principles to Gov

The White House has established a new Office of American Innovation to “bring together the best ideas from Government, the private sector, and other thought leaders to ensure that America is ready to solve today’s most intractable problems.”

The new office will be led by White House advisor Jared Kushner, and is being characterized as an internal SWAT team of consultants – reportedly to include Apple CEO Tim Cook and Salesforce CEO Elon Musk – that, according to a presidential memo signed by Trump on Monday “will focus on implementing policies and scaling proven private-sector models to spur job creation and innovation.”

The memo said that the office would focus on implementing policies and scaling proven private-sector models to spur job creation and innovation, and also consult with OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The office is being tasked with making recommendations to improve government operations and services, as well as launching initiatives and coordinating the implementation of any plans arising from its pooling of ideas and talent from a variety of sources in and outside of government.

The action comes on the heels of an executive order calling on OMB to come up with a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies, agency components and programs.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the new innovation office would have a “particular focus on tech and data,” and one of its first priorities would be to “focus on modernizing the technology of every federal department, identifying transformational infrastructure projects, and reimagining the VA system.”

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