Practitioner Picks is a quarterly series designed to add fresh resources to the Digital Government Hub’s library, helping people improve government digital service delivery. Each issue spotlights resources chosen by practitioners in a specific service delivery area along with their insights on why these picks are valuable additions to the Hub.
An event recap from one of FormFest 2024's opening main stage featuring speakers from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Maryland, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, and Code for America.
We wrapped up Rules as Code Demo Day with Max Ghenis and Nikhil Woodruff, the founders of PolicyEngine. The PolicyEngine web app computes the impact of tax and benefit policy in the US and the UK. With PolicyEngine, anyone can freely calculate their taxes and benefits under current law and customizable policy reforms, and also estimate the society-wide impacts of those reforms. Policymakers and think tanks from across the political spectrum can analyze actual policy. PolicyEngine is built atop the open source OpenFisca US and UK microsimulation models and they are building an open unified data set utilizing data from the Policy Rules Database, Current Population Survey, Survey of Consumer Finances, Consumer Expenditures, tax records, and IRS Public Use File.
A panel of experts discuss the application of civil rights protections to emerging AI technologies, highlighting potential harms, the need for inclusive teams, and the importance of avoiding technology-centric solutions to social problems.
Jennifer Pahlka, Deputy CTO in President Obama’s Administration and author, shares her new book, Recoding America on how government must be equipped for digital delivery in order to meet ambitious policy goals. This video was recorded at the Digital Benefits Conference (BenCon) at Georgetown University on June 14, 2023.
A collaborative resource document detailing the civic tech support offerings, state and local government resources, and civic tech organizational support.
In February 2023, the Digital Benefits Network at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation released a dataset documenting authentication and identity verification requirements that unemployment insurance (UI) applicants encounter across the United States. This resource outlines high-level observations from the data and more information about the research process.
On July 16, members of the Digital Identity Community of practice gathered to learn how peers are gathering beneficiary feedback on their experiences with accounts and proving their identity.
As they transition to providing more services online, there are ways governments can get creative working around talent shortages and entrenched bureaucracies.
