Challenge.gov goes live

September 7, 2010 — 3:00pm ET | By Molly Bernhart Walker

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Barack Obama
Vivek Kundra
GSA
the American People
Bev Godwin
challenge.gov

Agencies seeking to host public competitions that promote federal goals need look no further than Challenge.gov, said a clutch of senior information technology executives Sept. 7 during the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, D.C.

"If you're a federal employee, use Challenge.gov to post challenges for your agency. Look around for opportunities, think big and spread the word," said Bev Godwin, director of new media and citizen engagement at the General Services Administration. "We did this so that agencies wouldn't have to do this over and over again themselves," she added. The site currently hosts 36 competitions.

"This engages the American people to be co-creators to solve some of the toughest problems America faces," said Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra.

At the conference, Godwin encouraged agencies to use the free service, explaining that with little technical skill, they can set the dates of a contest, invite judges, recruit moderators and view the analytics behind the contest.

Citizens and contractors hoping to compete on opportunities can search the site by topic, agency, time remaining to submit, prize amount and popularity. Not all challenges offer prizes and not all prizes are monetary; some use social prizes. In addition, the users of the platform are not limited to the seekers of a solution and the challengers. Other third parties can blog and discuss solutions in forums in order to share solutions and chose the best ideas.

The platform was launched as part of President Obama's Strategy for American Innovation, which aims to engage the public on government solutions. ChallengePost, a New York City-based startup worked with GSA from design to launch in less than 120 days.

For more:
- see a video of the session (reg. req.)