Conclusion: Building Forward

Collaborative and coalition approaches to societal challenges is the ideal. This is best achieved when open solutions and civic groups, political leaders, philanthropies, business leaders, technologists, faith leaders, and unions and workers’ groups, work in concert at the local, state, and national levels to build and implement solutions designed in the public interest. This is an obvious point to those of us who do the work, but it is worth repeating for governments that are accustomed to working directly with for-profit entities. Governments can explore innovative ways of working with third parties, instead of traditional status-quo procurement. Rather than posting a single monolithic request for proposals, governments could invite vendors to work collaboratively on responsive, resilient, and cost-effective solutions to big public sector problems.

The one clear motive for open-source digital public goods and anyone who works on them is better serving the public interest, while private sector vendors must operate in a project-first or product-first orientation. Private sector vendors can work toward the public interest; it is just more complicated for them to do so. Real change is rarely a quick fix. Developing new and sustainable paths for government innovation needs far more attention, research, and effective case studies. It also requires flexible and sustainable funding models that foster contributions from all stakeholders. Open-source software is a route to strengthening public service delivery and addressing some of the obstacles preventing the adoption of systems more responsive to the needs of clients, frontline staff, and administrators.

The My File project demonstrates that working with and for communities can lead to government service delivery that is both efficient and effective. We are thrilled to share the My File codebase and invite the public interest tech community to explore the repositories. DIGI is actively exploring partnerships and collaborations with jurisdictions working toward improving pathways to accessing public services.