Celebrating Innovation: Code.gov honored at the 2018 ACT-IAC Innovation Awards

Code.gov
CodeDotGov
Published in
3 min readJun 6, 2018
Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Unsplash

Let’s be honest — there are a lot of clever, smart people in the world. Innovation drives us forward, and when you see it happen it should be celebrated. That is why there are awards and expositions all geared for the next great idea. The truth about these special honors and events is that while there may be only one big winner or award recipient, everyone that contributes has something to offer. This search for the next big idea is one of many reasons the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC), a DC-based non-profit organization with a mission of bringing industry and government together around various technology topics, hosts their own award recognizing innovation. ACT-IAC offers objectives and platforms trusted by both government and private corporations that encourage innovation. Their agenda continues to evolve with the fluid changes seen in the federal government and emerging technologies. Honoring their commitment in creating a more effective, efficient government, ACT-IAC created the Igniting Innovation Conference, an event where Code.gov was prominently featured this year.

The 2018 Igniting Innovation Conference, presented by ACT-IAC’s Institute for Innovation, is their annual competition that “identifies, recognizes, and promotes the best innovations in government to improve services to citizens and government operations.” At this year’s event, ACT-IAC received over 100 submissions from industry and government for government products and programs considered by submitters to be innovative. These are concepts and ideas realized, some of them prototypes and some ongoing projects that are always changing, always improving in order to become more stable and applicable. On Friday May 11th, the Igniting Innovation event took place. This competition included keynotes, lightning talks, product and project demonstrations, and (of course) award presentations. Again, while this is a “competition” from ACT-IAC, the Igniting Innovation actually serves as an open platform for creative and analytical minds developing new solutions big and small. Of the 100 submissions, 40 semi-finalists were selected to participate in the event’s “science fair” in person to demonstrate and discuss their projects.

Joe Castle, presenting to the 2018 ACT-IAC Igniting Innovation event.

From the event’s floor, all semi-finalists discussed and demonstrated their products and programs with ACT-IAC judges. Within these selected 40 projects, Code.gov was present. Joe Castle represented Code.gov, putting forward our mission with open source, efficient software development in our government, how our API works in harvesting projects based on search parameters, returning OSS to the taxpayers, and the website’s current features including Help Wanted and a robust, internal Search engine. It was up to the judges to narrow down the semi-finalists to eight for a final presentation on the mainstage. We are thrilled to tell you that of the final eight, Code.gov was chosen and Joe Castle brought us into the spotlight one more time for the event.

Code.gov making the “Top Eight” was truly an honor for us, and at an event like Institute for Innovation’s Igniting Innovation, every entry — even those not seen in the chosen 40 that made it to the event’s floor — is a step forward in some way. Each submission is a solution, and Code.gov is proud to find itself in the top tier of those solutions that push us forward in technology and creativity.

Special thanks to Joe Castle for participation in this article.

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