Big Day at GSA

??Proud to witness the heartfelt graduation ceremony of the inaugural cohort of the U.S. Digital Corps .??

It was inspiring, fun, and moving to hear the stories of passionate early-career technologists after their first two years in federal government.

A bit of history: in 2020, the U.S. Digital Corps was just an idea .? Ideas are cheap, execution is hard.? But there were a few key ingredients:

• Coding It Forward co-founder Chris Kuang had experience recruiting students for federal tech summer internships.? Chris knew firsthand how much the next generation of tech talent wants to serve in public service and the big impact they can have when supported in a cohort model.? Despite his youth, Chris’s Coding It Forward success meant he had credibility with federal tech executives.
• Teach For America executive Caitlin Gandhi , having begun her career as a teacher and later serving as a TFA exec focused on talent, knew what makes early-career programs successful: excellence in recruiting, selecting people with the grit and attitude to thrive, and support of mission-focused talent in the early innings of their career. She also understands the intersection of policy and practice and where there is room for innovation.
• Presidential Innovation Fellow Masha Danilova , having a career in engineering followed by years of management of various disciplines in tech, knew firsthand what it takes to inspire, build, and manage a thriving technical organization and culture.?
• VA CTO Charles Worthington and Misu Tasnim at CMS were vocal about the federal government’s need for more early-career technologists.? Having been a Presidential Innovation Fellow and co-founder of the U.S. Digital Service (Charles) and the director of the CMS/HHS Digital Service (Misu), they deeply understood how technologists new to government can partner with existing teams to make a massive impact—and were in positions to be two of the key anchor partners of the program.
• 2020 meant there was an upcoming change in administration or a second term, either of which would make for an opportunity to launch a new program.??

I also had the experience in the Obama Administration of helping the Presidential Innovation Fellows program get started (alongside co-founders John Farmer and Arianne Gallagher ), helping co-run the program with Jen Pahlka briefly, and then seeing how the PIF program got codified into government, first with an executive order and then bipartisan legislation.?

When I introduced Caitlin to Chris, and they hit it off, I knew we had a great founding team.? All we had to do was convince a bunch of agencies to be inaugural hosts, convince GSA leadership to set up a new program office, find funding for it, and convince an existing Administration (and also a possibly new Administration coming in) that this was important to improving government and worth prioritizing.? It helped to write it down in several forums, including the Day One Project (thank you Dan Correa ) and Harvard (thank you Harvard IOP and Belfer Center ), and talk to hundreds of people inside and outside government to refine the idea.?

But again, ideas are common.? I’ve heard variations of this idea dozens of times.? Execution is always hard, and starting something new in government is really hard—especially if there isn’t a crisis or legislation as a catalyzing event. Trump Administration officials and GSA civil servants liked the idea and helped set the wheels in motion—but also recognized that it would have the highest chance of success (regardless of election result) if it publicly launched in 2021. Thank you to Matt Lira, Bob DeLuca, and especially Josh DiFrances.?

Chris, Caitlin, and Masha are amazing entrepreneurs who deeply understood customers on both sides—early career tech talent and government agencies—and worked to refine the idea, get buy-in, and build momentum for the program.? Together, the three of them made something from nothing.

One of the tactics in Marina Nitze ’s and my book, Hack Your Bureaucracy , is to “Act as if”—i.e. bring your idea to life by acting as if it’s already a reality, even if it’s not quite there yet.? It’s the idea of “making stone soup ”, after the European folk story.? Even if you start with just a pebble in plain water, you can create a hearty soup if you can get others to contribute—an allegory for entrepreneurship in the public sector, in my mind.? There were dozens of people across OMB, USDS, OSTP, DPC, OPM, and GSA who supported, advanced, and unblocked the initiative—contributing in important ways.? In addition to Charles Worthington at VA and Misu Tasnim at CMS, leaders at other agencies—including Jen Easterly at CISA, Kristen Honey at HHS, Ted Kaouk at OPM, Sarah Tully at ACF, and Garrett Berntsen at State—signed up to host U.S. Digital Corps fellows in their agency.

Leadership matters greatly too. The Biden Administration included the U.S. Digital Corps in its talent and government modernization strategy, and later in its AI strategy.? Susan Rice, Clare Martorana, Jason Miller, Cristin Dorgelo, Mina Hsiang, Cori Zarek, and Dustin Brown in the White House all leaned in.? OPM leaders, including Kiran Ahuja, Rob Shriver, Curtis Mejeur, and Margot Conrad were key in supporting this new program.? And most critically, GSA leadership, especially Robin Carnahan, Sonny Hashmi, David Zvenyach, Ann Lewis, and David Shive were outspoken champions of the new program.

Caitlin, Chris, and Masha were hired into the new program office as the Director, Deputy Director, and Senior Advisor respectively. They built a fantastic program team, many of whom I saw in action at the graduation ceremony.? Thank you Paul Agosta, Amanda Robinson, Malaika Carpenter, Emily Carter, Ben P., Sven Aas, Hilary Lutz, Dahianna Salazar Foreman, Jared Bain, Lauren Haynes, Maria Patterson, and Will Slack.?

Together, they recruited across America, to build a diverse, talented cohort of fellows, and supported them in their introduction to federal service.? The 38 fellows (software engineers, product managers, data scientists, designers, and cybersecurity experts) served in 14 federal agencies.?

When the U.S. Digital Corps was just an idea , we thought that success would be a significant majority of the fellows continuing in government. We weren’t sure what to expect, frankly. But it is clear now that graduating fellows want to continue serving: 95% of the inaugural cohort is continuing on in career federal service.

As GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said last week at the graduation ceremony : “The U.S. Digital Corps was an experiment when we started, and it has proven to be an overwhelming success.”??

A special thanks goes to this first cohort of Digital Corps Fellows.? They were the ones who took a chance, coming out of school or changing careers to enter federal government.? Any new fellowship program—especially a new 2-year one in the federal government—will have some growing pains as it gets built.? This inaugural cohort leaned in and made it their own—supporting each other personally and professionally.? Check out these lessons and reflections from a few of the graduating fellows.

Thank you Anastasia Gradova, Anjenica Nikki Ramos, Anthony Barbara, Ashwini Shankar, Chizobam Nwagwu, Christy Tong, Dhan Gurung, Isabel Laurenceau, Jamie Oh, Jamila Crawford, Jasmine Yohannan, Jay Shao, Jenny Wang, Jillian Gilburne, Joe Lindsey, John Remensperger, Jonathan Hart, Julie Winston, Justen Lewis, Karley Thurston, Kathleen Carroll, Kira Tebbe, Lacy Kelly Ramos, Liane Peng, Meenu Bhooshanan, Meredith Brown, Michelle Polyak, Nina Anusavice, Pierce Lowary, Sahithi Adari, Samantha Chai, Samira Sadat, Selyne Singh, Thomas Sittmann, Tiffany Feng, Trey Gordner, and Victoria Newman!?

And I’m proud that this is just the beginning. With 47 newly minted “second-year fellows” and 80 more entering in August this year, U.S. Digital Corps will have over 125 active fellows and 35 alumni all at work in federal agencies. You can do a lot with 160 talented technologists working every day to make things better…!??

Yet we are still in the early innings. There is a tremendous opportunity to continue to scale the program to serve the American people, especially given the digital transformations happening across government, and early-career technologists’ interest in public service. If you are in a federal agency and interested in partnering with the U.S. Digital Corps to host fellows, email [email protected] .

Building in government is hard.? But it is worth it.? I’m so proud of the entire U.S. Digital Corps team and fellows.