Alvand “Alvin” Salehi is a Senior Technology Advisor at the White House and the co-founder of Code.gov, the nation’s primary platform for sharing and improving government software. He also serves as a research affiliate at Harvard Law School, where he explores the impact of open source software on economic efficiency, code security, and tech innovation across the country. In this panel, Avlin will speak about Code.gov, which is transforming into the nation’s primary platform for sharing & improving government software, and how it can be utilized to spark the nation’s next innovation breakthrough.

Could you tell me about your panel?

I’m giving a talk about Code.gov as part of the Code & Programming track at SXSW — how it came to be, where it is now, and where it’s headed. As many know, the federal government spends billions of dollars a year on software transactions. But up until recently, many of these transactions were duplicative. When we wrote the Federal Source Code Policy in 2016, we had one objective in mind – save taxpayer dollars by reducing duplicative software development across government. Since then, we’ve worked hard to ensure that our cost-saving goals come to fruition. With the help of an incredible team and the hard work of our agency counterparts, we developed and launched Code.gov as a tool to help agencies collaborate on their software – not only with each other, but also with the public – in an effort to help maximize the economic benefits associated with code sharing and reuse. And now we can’t wait to share our progress with the SXSW community.

What specific things are you hoping people learn?

When we launched Code.gov in November 2016, we had 45 projects represented on the platform. Now we have over 3,000. I’m excited to share all of the incredible teamwork that has gone into turning this dream into a reality. SXSW coincides with an inflection point in the lifecycle of our platform. This past year has been about building out the code inventory on Code.gov. Now we’re ready to share these projects with the tech community in hopes that developers from all corners of the United States will feel inspired to explore the amazing work that our federal agencies produce day in and day out – and maybe even use some of that code to help propel America’s next breakthrough in innovation.

What do you hope the biggest takeaway will be for someone that attends?

Our goal is to make Code.gov the nation’s primary platform for sharing and improving government software. To that end, I hope the folks who attend our talk will leave the room feeling motivated and intrigued, knowing that agencies like NASA, the Pentagon, and the NSA are releasing really cool and interesting projects. When I first learned that the Pentagon was going to open source code that was being used as part of a NATO mission in Afghanistan, I couldn’t wait to hop on the computer and check out the code. As a student, can you imagine telling your friends that you stayed up all night contributing to NASA’s mission control framework? That’s the power of Code.gov. There are so many projects to explore, learn from, and contribute to. Whether technical or non-technical, anyone can log onto our platform today and start giving back to the country one contribution at a time.

What inspired you to host this panel at SXSW?

I’ve spoken with so many people over the years who have expressed a sincere interest in improving government websites. And occasionally, this desire is born out of frustration – someone might log onto a government site and find that it’s not functioning the way they expect it to. Ideally, with Code.gov, they would be able to submit a fix to that issue right then and there.

If I can get on that stage and inspire the SXSW community to take advantage of the incredible opportunities awaiting them on Code.gov, then we’ll be one step closer to fulfilling our vision of working together to build better software across the government. That’s what inspires me every day.

About Alvin Salehi

Prior to joining the White House in 2015, Salehi helped lead the State Department’s efforts to expand Internet access to Africa and improve global market access for US technology companies. He also served at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which invests in transformative, cutting-edge technologies on behalf of the federal government.

Friday, March 9
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
JW Marriott Salon 6
Find Out More: America’s Code: Open Sourcing Government Software

Featured Image: Pixabay