This Week in Gov Tech

All right, TGIF, and welcome back to another episode of In Case You Missed It, This Week in GovTech. Another exciting week of lots of great stories, lots of great market activity, and I'll kind of kick us off with something that just happened yesterday that I was honored to be able to have a chance to moderate. There was an AR/VR policy conference that was being put on by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, ITIF, as well as some partners, really to kind of dive into augmented and virtual reality and mixed reality and kind of what this means for policymakers. So I had an all-star panelist of, you know, Diane Hickey, who was the SBIR/STTR Program Director at the National Science Foundation. I had Erica Pease, who was the Senior Industry Product Manager for Unity Technologies. I had Ash Richter, the Senior Technology Architect at In-Q-Tel, and Scott Evans, VP of Mixed Reality and Public Sector Solutions at Microsoft. So we kind of dove into what do policymakers need to know about AR/VR technologies and kind of just the— this landscape of mixed reality, extended reality. We all kind of hear about the metaverse and, you know, all these other things that are kind of emerging. So some key highlights were around, from a standardization standpoint, we really need to focus on, you know, having standards, leveraging approaches from other countries, you know, looking at inspiration for others that are kind of already starting to lay the foundation for this. That was some great insight from Ash at In-Q-Tel. Erica had some great insight around, you know, making sure that we bring everyone along this time, and I thought that was a fascinating way to kind of phrase accessibility and really thinking about digital equity and inclusion. You know, when you think about AR/VR technologies, it's more than just a headset and putting on a headset and having that experience, but there's so many things that go into it. But how do you ensure that we design to leverage these things for those that, you know, may have been left behind from some of the other, you know, exponential technologies? Diane at the NSF said we have to make sure policymakers have experience with what they're regulating. So, you know, we got to put headsets on them. We got to make sure that they understand the fundamental nature of these technologies because it's hard to build regulatory sandboxes or even constructs around them if they actually haven't had any experience using the technology themselves. And Scott from Microsoft said we have to also focus on change management and kind of ROI, making sure that we think about not just putting in place the tech and the infrastructure, but that we think about how do we get people to use it effectively, how do we ensure that they're understanding how to measure and quantify the usage of it and kind of the return on their investment in the technology as well. Some of the problems we dealt with, with the one-to-one implementations of just throwing iPads and laptops at kids and expecting magic to happen. So it was a really fascinating conversation, but love to get Joe and Jed, your take as you hear AR/VR as one of many emerging technologies. Any thoughts on what you're seeing or hearing here?

Yeah, it's interesting to see it come back, right? I remember coming into the Center for Digital Government in 2007, and I wanna say that one of the first covers of GovTech that I remember It was this conversation of SimCities and the use of these technologies in the GovTech space. And now to see it come back around, but with the technologies obviously making significant advancements, you can see some of the applicability in training for government and some real-world use cases. So I'm excited to see where it goes.

Yeah, Dustin, you know, initially when I thought of— when I think of virtual reality, I think back to video games. You know, I've been playing video games for a long time. In the '90s, Nintendo tried to get into virtual reality with something called the Virtual Boy. It was a disaster though. It just wasn't virtual reality. And so now we're, you know, decades away from that, and now we're really seeing stuff that's closer to what maybe we've seen in movies, you know, like Minority Report or something like that. And to Joe's point, there is a lot of obvious applications for training, you know, whether it be like driving training or you know, on-the-job training or something like that that involves these things. And then there's also cities that have programs where virtual reality and augmented reality can help citizens understand the history of the very place. You know, it can take them through a journey of these different historical neighborhoods and help people really understand the historical context and everything. So I think it can be a great tool for teaching people about society. But then, you know, when we start getting into the metaverse, that's when I start to get a little worried. You know, we've heard Zuckerberg from Facebook talk about this, and the idea is that this metaverse, it's not going to be the idea of users looking at content. They're actually going to be in the content. And so at that point, you get into this kind of area where, hey, do you really know where reality and non-reality end and/or meet? And I think that's something that should be taken very seriously.

Yeah, lots of considerations around kind of the eventual rise of that, and it's interesting to see how these companies are approaching it, you know, like Facebook and others. You know, we've seen news that they're contemplating renaming themselves and kind of doing an Alphabet-type move where, you know, they become a— the Facebook name becomes a part of a brand. So it'll be fascinating to kind of follow how all of this pans out. For those of you that are interested though in seeing the full kind of conference recordings, you can go to the arvrpolicy.org website and they've got the ability to watch the recordings online. So encourage you to check that out if you're interested. So speaking of emerging tech, Joe's story for the week is really focused on artificial intelligence, another emerging tech that continues to be in the spotlight.

Yeah, similar conversation it sounds, right? We're all looking at the framework in terms of AI adoption. The City of New York just built out a new plan. It's 116 pages in length, but it's probably one of the most complete plans that we've seen in the public sector in terms of government's adoption, use, and planned use of artificial intelligence. As we mentioned on last week's episode, AI is something that I've been steeped in for a while. We just released our report on state government adoption of AI, and we've seen it over the last 3 years grow rapidly in terms of its adoption and uses in state government. This takes it through the lens of a city government, and this plan isn't just about— it's not aspirational, what can we do with AI? It covers what are they doing currently with AI, where are they going, covers the ethical use of AI and how they're going to leverage AI around modernizing legacy tech, cybersecurity, and all of the facets that we talk about. And it really digs deep into those ethical concerns while still maintaining this, what I call this optimistic look to where AI can be alleviating some of those concerns around what does it mean to the people, what does it mean to the workforce. Many of those concerns that we've already started to see peel off at the state government level. But the plan is linked in the GovTech article. It's absolutely worth checking out because like many things in the public sector, If you can steal this idea and borrow from this plan, maybe it gives you a lens to look at AI in terms of what it could mean to your city, your county, or maybe even your state.

Yeah, and I think it's fascinating because it's, you know, AI is a collective issue that we have to solve together. It's not just something government can sit back and wait for the private sector to figure it out. It's also not something that local and state governments should wait for the feds to figure out. It's a collective thing that we have to look at. holistically. So it was great to see the proactive approach that New York City is taking here. And I think, you know, the one word of advice is we have to also look at these regulatory kind of strategies and frameworks as, you know, being in a sandbox. Things are going to change as we better understand and utilize the technology. So, you know, what's put in place from a strategic standpoint and kind of a use of the technology to start with isn't necessarily what we need to keep forever, because as we've seen, the world is moving at an exponential pace and so are the behaviors. of how these technologies are coming into use.

I think one of the interesting points about this article is people's perception of artificial intelligence based on popular culture. This article directly references Terminator, for example. And so, you know, we have a lot of conspiracy theorists out there right now. You know, they've been popping up more and more the last couple of years. And so a lot of this is that if you want to use artificial intelligence, you do have to kind of get people over the hump in terms of these more conspiratorial angles about artificial intelligence. That's not to say that AI doesn't have potential for misuse or discriminatory things and that sort of thing. But there does have to be some sort of, for lack of a better term, clarification to the public about what you actually are going to be doing with AI. Hey, we're not going to let Terminators rule the world, you know, that sort of thing.

Yeah. Well, and this piece was very good, and the plan itself leveraged, you know, terms frequently throughout— human equity, you know, justice— all of these things that we're looking at, uh, the world right now and giving rise to these. So even as we look to advance the adoption of technology, it's kind of refreshing to see New York City look at it through this lens of, of equity and a human aspect to the technology adoption as well.

Yeah, totally agree. And I think to Jed's point, definitions are key. I mean, even with the metaverse, right? So many things. I mean, so many things to so many different people. Some people think it's just a gaming, you know, kind of evolution. Some people see the economic potential output or the ability to actually do physical, you know, or virtual work in it. So it's going to be important to kind of get those definitions right, especially as we think about the future regulatory environment around these things. So, Jed, your story is really focused on, you know, kind of this evolution of work, so to speak. So why did this one catch your eye?

So this discussion about remote work has obviously been with us ever since the pandemic started. You know, it opened a lot of people's minds up to the idea, you know, people that never would have thought about it before. You know, necessity basically forced government's hand. But now, you know, we've been having this conversation for a while about, well, is this here to stay? And so this article in a way kind of covers some of the old points, but I like the way that some of these experts at this event the Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo in Washington, D.C. I like how some of these experts framed it. So, you know, one of the things that we've heard before is that if government sticks to remote work, it can help them maybe be more competitive in attracting IT talent because certain people that, you know, might work for the government, they may not want to even do it if they can't have a remote work option. And so we've heard that that could be an advantage in attracting them. But then there was this one source that said it like this, though. Quote, this is a tremendous opportunity for government to get ahead of some of the big business types that are not just willing to shift as quickly as they need to. And I find that interesting because, you know, when we talk about industry and government, the idea is that government is always behind industry, but this quote is actually implying that government can get ahead of some industry types because there does appear to be some reluctance in some business circles. Even though it is, I think, quite popular in general. So I found that framing quite interesting. You know, another point, and this is from the Chief Technology Officer of Carlsbad, California, David Graham, talking about productivity. He seems to be implying that the way that government is going to define productivity of its staff, you know, basically that it fundamentally changes when you go ahead with remote work. You know, don't just say that we might use remote work. You know, he's saying that we should use it. And that it changes our perception of productivity. He said this idea of just looking at someone, you know, what they're doing in their chair in the office, he said that that doesn't really make any sense. You know, like where the person is sitting, it doesn't really tell you how productive they are. And so I just find that very interesting is that he's arguing, I think implicitly, that you should go ahead with remote work because it will change fundamentally how you view things like productivity.

Yeah, I think it's fascinating. And I also think that we have to kind of evolve what we define as remote work too, right? Like when you think of remote work today, it's someone in your city that's working from home in their house in your city. But when the pandemic happened, we saw all kinds of interesting behaviors where we had state employees in California that moved to Texas and were working from Austin, but they were working from Austin for the state of California. So there's these new kind of you know, behaviors that are emerging that really redefine like where is remote and, you know, what is eligible from a governmental standpoint. I think for agencies that take advantage of this, it could open up a talent pool for them as well. You know, not to say that, you know, your state should employ, you know, people in other states to work for you, but, you know, when we start to think broader about where talent is, this could be one way to solve that always recurring challenge of how we recruit and retain staff inside of state and local agencies.

You know, last week hearing from the state CIO community, it's apparent that as we, as we move closer to a post-pandemic world, the expanded remote options for government employees are here to stay. That's still towards the top portion of their, of their priority list. And we're also expecting more changes to state government facilities, whether that's a reduction in office space, whether that's reconfigurations to that office space to facilitate hoteling. You know, remote work is here to stay, and that's also impacting what governments are investing in. I think that's what's giving rise to the conversation around AI, the conversation around RPA, and some of the work that we're seeing to automate and modernize these business processes that, you know, help government function. That brings us to the end of this week's episode, and you can see it was another jam-packed week in GovTech. We'll be back at you next week. Dustin, you're headed to an event. here at the beginning of the week to cover some changes in the GovTech space.

Yeah, yeah. October 25th, 26th in Austin, Texas, I'll be at the GovTech Summit. It's being put on by AWS GovTech startups as well as Advantage Capital and in-state partners. And so it's gonna be a great event really focused on what's happening in this investment landscape and kind of ecosystem of GovTech. So looking forward to connecting with startups, investors, government, and others there. So if you're gonna be in town for it, Definitely ping us. I know Thad will be out there from the GovTech team as well, eating Texas barbecue and covering the world of GovTech. So we'll recap some of that and more on next Friday's episode.

All right, everyone have a wonderful weekend and take care.