GSA announces 2022 Presidential Innovation Fellows class
GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan testifies via video conference at her Senate confirmation hearing, June 10, 2021 Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
By
Natalie Alms
The program, started in the Obama administration, is meant to bring tech-savvy change agents into government.
Twenty-five new "entrepreneurs-in-residence" are on their way into government this year through the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
The General Services Administration announced the 2022 class on Monday. This is the tenth year of the program, which began out of the White House Office of Science and Technology in the Obama-Biden administration.
The program is designed to bring innovators from the private sector into government, with fellows initially coming in for one year stints, although agencies and fellows can agree to extend it and fellows can pursue government service after the fellowship ends.
"So much of my career has been spent tugging and pressuring for change from the outside. In order to put into practice what I preach about radical empathy, I saw the PIF program as a way to embed myself in an institution that has to operate at scale to serve the public," said new fellow Ha-Hoa Hamano, who'll be working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in a statement.
This year's fellows will be working across 14 agencies, two of which are new to the program - the Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"We're thrilled to have these experienced professionals coming to us from private industry who want to do a year-long tour in public service, helping the government uncover new and better ways to deliver for taxpayers," said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan in a statement. "I'm confident that this diverse group will help agencies—now including CDC and FEMA—provide even more value to the people they serve."
The projects that this year's cohort will be working on include modernizing public health data systems and advising tech efforts at the White House - level. A full list of new fellows is available here.