President Obama’s Last Official Act
[UPDATE: WIRED published an article on January 27, “The Race to Pass Obama’s Last Law and Save Tech in DC”, that tells the dramatic story behind the bill signing.]
This morning, January 20, 2017, at 11:07 am, President Obama signed into law H.R. 39, also know as the TALENT Act.
The bipartisan TALENT Act, sponsored by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, codifies the Presidential Innovation Fellows program into law.
As I’ve written before, getting talented, diverse technologists and innovators into government — and pairing them with top change agents inside government — was the basic idea behind the Presidential Innovation Fellows program that we launched in 2012. President Obama signed an executive order in 2015 to formalize the program, and thanks to the bipartisan support, became U.S. law today.
PIFs, as they are known, have helped to save taxpayer money, fuel private sector job growth, and modernize government. PIFs were instrumental in the founding and growth of the U.S. Digital Services and 18F — and continue to bring unique talents to government.
Private sector leaders provided bipartisan support — a number of CEOs and others urged Congress to get this done during the lame duck legislative session. While we ran out of time then, kudos to House Majority Leader McCarthy, his Senior Adviser Matt Lira, and members and staff in both chambers for making this a priority in a new Congress.
As one of the final Obama White House press releases said today:
On Friday, January 20, 2017, the President signed into law:
H.R. 39, the “Tested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent Act of 2017,” which codifies the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program to enable exceptional individuals with proven track records to serve time-limited appointments in executive agencies to address some of the Nation’s most significant challenges.
It’s fitting that President Obama’s very last official act was to sign a bipartisan bill advancing tech and innovation in government. As President Obama has said:
