Advice for the new White House Office of American Innovation
Yesterday, the White House announced that it will create the White House Office of American Innovation to develop new strategies to the age old problem of government inefficiency. Officials have already held meetings with business leaders such as Tim Cook, Bill Gates and Elon Musk on how to transform the federal bureaucracy into a more forward thinking and nimble body.
This is not the first time an administration has tried to modernize the way government is run. Al Gore led an effort to do this in the 90’s and, most recently, President Obama developed programs like the The U.S. Digital Service (USDS), Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF), and 18F. Each of these initiatives bore fruit, but it’s clear we still have more work to do. Continuing to examine how we can improve our government should be viewed by all of us as an important priority, irrespective of our political leanings.
Making government more efficient is critical, but it’s only the beginning of what needs to happen as we enter a new era, the Third Wave, where the internet will be infused seamlessly into our lives, disrupting large industries like food, transportation, health, and education. As Third Wave technologies like drones, driverless cars, and artificial intelligence gain momentum, the government will need to carefully and wisely balance the desire to regulate, to keep bad things from happening, with the need to let new and fragile innovations develop and flourish, to enable good things to happen.
America got this right with the Internet, unleashing a wave of innovation and economic growth. We need to strike a similar balance as waves of disruption hit some of the largest sectors of our economy, and touch some of the most important aspects of our lives: how we stay healthy, how we move around, how we grow food, how we consume energy, and how we learn.
While a light regulatory touch tends to encourage innovation, it is worth noting that the Third Wave will require a more nuanced approach. The big Third Wave innovations will come through cross-sector partnerships and the convergence of technologies. The challenge for government is not just to move with more agility, but to think in more integrated ways. The way agencies have been set up in the past won’t be effective in the future, because Third Wave issues will cut across multiple agencies. Therefore, a “silo” approach will likely lead to U.S. innovation screeching to a halt. Instead, we need a “systems” approach. That will require a culture change for policy makers and regulators, who have gotten used to having — and defending — their own focused turfs.
The administration has taken an important first step in setting up the White House Office of American Innovation. But for America to lead in the Third Wave, we need to go further, and coordinate innovation policy across government. As we’ve seen in the past, administrations have used a “Czar” strategy to tackle many issues, including during the Ebola epidemic. A “Third Wave Czar” can help navigate and synchronize regulations and work with industries and entrepreneurs to help shape future rules across agencies.
The Third Wave is already cresting, and the White House Office of American Innovation has an opportunity to reimagine the role of government, to fuel, vs. slow, innovation. I am hopeful they will jump at the chance.
