VanRoekel: Federal mobility strategy will be data driven

Data will be at the core of the federal mobility strategy, said Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel. The strategy will streamline the acquisition, management and delivery of mobile services, but more than that, it will create a common, device agnostic approach, said VanRoekel while speaking March 3 at the FOSE conference in Washington, D.C.

The strategy “architects for openness, architects for interoperability and is shared across government,” said VanRoekel. “Expect that as we go forward.”

The federal mobility strategy--which VanRoekel recently said would be coupled with dot-gov reform efforts--is expected later this month.

“We need to think about government really as a platform,” said VanRoekel. “This year you will see some new direction from the U.S. government on a data-centric approach, an evolving data-centric approach.”

Data should be at the core of everything government does, he said. As such, a mobile strategy shouldn’t just focus on “infrastructure,” said VanRoekel. “You need to start at more of an elemental point.”

Van Roekel said the mobile strategy will focus on three parts:

• “The first is ‘the what’: spanning data and content, thinking about how do we build that data infrastructure across government;
• the second is building and managing digital services, kind of the delivery vehicle, the platform for what we’re going to deliver; and
• last is ‘the where’: How do we deliver an experience for citizens and employees that pulls in the ability to kind of access this ‘anywhere, any device?’”

The timing is right for governmentwide mobility reform because younger employees and citizens expect a higher-level of interaction with government, and there is an “obligation” to connect agency mission and delivery mechanisms, he said.

“We’re at an inflection point where the consumerization of technology, and technology generally, is just going to sort of roll over us from the standpoint of government. And the key here is that expectations are rising,” said VanRoekel.

For more:
- listen to VanRoekel’s keynote in full

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