“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”

So let’s do something about it.

We’re the Presidential Innovation Fellows working on Project MyGov, and we’re reimagining how people interact with government—through an experience designed around their needs rather than a confusing and fragmented bureaucracy.

And that’s where you come in. But first…

What is Project MyGov?

Project MyGov is one of five initiatives of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program, which pairs top innovators from the private sector, non-profits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months. Each team of innovators works together in-person in Washington, DC, on focused sprints while being supported by a broader community of interested citizens throughout the country (that’d be you). What makes this initiative unique is its focus on unleashing the ingenuity and know-how of Americans from all sectors.

On Project MyGov, we’re building a personalized citizen-centric platform for accessing services, getting answers, and providing feedback.

How Can You Help?

The team kicked off Project MyGov in early August by establishing a high-level strategy and piecing together some of the system architecture and infrastructure to support it. We reviewed the feedback that came before us, such as the National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites. We think there’s room, however, to better articulate or emphasize those ideas and hear what fresh new ones you may have.

At the core, we’re looking for ways to improve the way people and government connect at the most fundamental level and we want to hear from everyone, young and old, across the country. We also want to develop this collaboratively, so we want to hear from the civic hackers, the platform developers, the user experience gurus, the folks in technology, entertainment, design (TED, anyone?), and everyone in between.

If you’ve ever been to the post office, visited a government website, or applied for financial aid and thought, “Why did they do it this way?” or “I wish they’d thought of…” then we want to hear from you!

How to Stay Connected

• Follow us on Twitter.
• Join the conversation on Facebook.
• Visit us on IdeaScale to add your idea, give feedback on others and vote.
• Fork and contribute on GitHub.

Who are We?

Philip Ashlock, Benjamin J. Balter, Danny Chapman, Kara DeFrias, and Greg Gershman – the five Presidential Innovation Fellows working on Project MyGov. We’ll do formal introductions in a future post, but for now know, most importantly, we’re citizens just like you who want to reimagine a better way for government and the people to interact. Nice to meet you. Now let’s do this.