From Tbilisi to Austin: The Virtual Student Federal Service is Expanding its Horizons
By: Claire Mercer,VSFS eIntern ,Office of eDiplomacy , U.S. Department of State
Nearly ten years since its inception, the Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) is stronger than ever. Housed within the Department of State’s Bureau of Information Resource Management, Office of eDiplomacy, the VSFS allows thousands of U.S. students to participate in virtual internships with over sixty government agencies each academic year. Now the VSFS team, led by the State Department’s Bridget Roddy and Nora Dempsey, is exploring ways to foster virtual internship programming beyond the U.S. to further public participation initiatives worldwide. They have launched a movement to spread the virtual internship model into sister programs with foreign nations while working to increase their presence on the national stage at South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festivals. Your votes here can give the team an advantage in the SXSW panel selection process.
On the basis of VSFS facilitation of public participation in government, the VSFS team was invited to present at the 2018 Global Summit of Open Government Partnership (OGP), an annual event committed to the greater accountability and increased responsiveness of governments around the world. Roddy and Dempsey accepted the invitation on behalf of VSFS and traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia for the event in July.
During their time at the OGP Global Summit, the VSFS team engaged with youth activists on the topic of inclusion and empowerment of the next generation in government and introduced their eInternship program to legislators from more than twenty countries. In the interest of helping advance civil society efforts in other nations and promoting transparency by the United States, they offered to assist and advise the countries in attendance so they might begin their own virtual student programs following the VSFS model.
This initiative to expand the VSFS program throughout the U.S. government, and now to have the concept adopted by other nations, is documented in a short film, “Radical Transparency: VSFS Opens Governments.” The video was produced in partnership with Kristi Pelzel, a Masters student at Georgetown University and past virtual intern from the 2017–2018 VSFS project cycle. The video has been posted online with other short documentaries for the public to vote on which presentations should be included at SXSW, an annual technology, film, and music conference in Austin, Texas. Should the VSFS submission be selected, the team will travel to Austin in March 2019 to promote their program and ongoing work to help develop similar initiatives with other governments. The opportunity to showcase eIntern excellence and open government at SXSW is unparalleled in its reach and influence; last year, nearly 300,000 people were in attendance and speakers included renowned innovators Michael Dell, Elon Musk, and Steven Spielberg.
The selection of SXSW panelists is in part determined by a public vote during the Panel Picker phase, August 6–30. To help spread the word about open government and the benefits of virtual student internships in government, please vote and share with others! Each registered email address can vote only once for each proposal.
Editor’s Note: This entry originally appeared on DipNote, the U.S. Department of State’s official blog.
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