ACT/IAC tries to foster collaboration on mobility

A new website is intended to encourage communication and sharing of ideas between government and industry on bring-your-own-device and other mobility issues.

image of ipad

Launches of popular personal devices bring users joy, but can cause headaches for agency managers. ACT/IAC's new collaboration web site may ease some of those. (Image: blakespot vis Flickr)

A new website dedicated to collaboration between government and industry on mobility is going live, launching a forum to propel bring-your-own-device and other mobility strategies.

The site, a pilot effort spearheaded by the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council, aims to serve as a central point for sharing ideas and best practices, facilitating discussion in the community and bridging communication gaps, according to leaders behind the group.

“We want to have a place for government and industry to share BYOD policies as well as best practices in BYOD. You can’t necessarily do that on a regular government website,” said Tom Suder, president of MobileGov and co-chair of ACT-IAC’s Advanced Mobility Working Group. “Anyone can jump on [this] site, industry or government.”

The site, officially online as of Nov. 5, includes a dedicated discussion forum as well as areas for news and documents. It’s also expected to serve as a platform for exploring issues like mobile security, connectivity and the standards and architectures required for workforce mobility.

Suder said ACT-IAC has been working with the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies to establish the portal, which is expected to eventually yield a published paper with policies and ideas sourced from the site’s users.

“It’s difficult to have one place for ideas – having one place for government and industry to collaborate,” Suder said. “ACTI-IAC is about bringing these groups together, so this is a forum to share that. It’s a work in progress.”