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Meet the Innovators
There are Innovators all around us! Innovators in the Federal Government are especially important. They improve American life, better citizen-to-government interaction, secure our nation and much, much more.

Join Chris Dorobek each week as he interviews Innovators within the Federal Government and shares how their innovations are impacting and improving our world! Tune in on Mondays during the Daily Debrief!

Meet the Innovators: Bev Godwin
Bev Godwin has seen the government online world from many sides now.

Earlier this year, soon after President Obama took office, Godwin joined the newly created White House new media team on detail from her regular post as director of USA.gov in GSA's Office of Citizen Services.

This week, we talk with Godwin about lessons learned from her tour of the White House.

Additional Resources:

The Collaboration Project: The White House - Open for Questions

Dorobek Insider: CIO Council -- Guidelines for Secure Use of Social Media by Federal Departments and Agencies, v1.0

(Read more Meet the Innovators.)
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Meet the Innovators: Peter Koht
There are tough economic times everywhere, of course, but the state of California is perhaps the poster child for government budget problems.

The problems have trickled down to cities and counties in the state.

The city of Santa Cruz is a beach community located near California's Silicon Valley -- and they were facing a real economic crisis.

It had to cut $14 million from its budget and more than 111 positions have been eliminated during this same period.

That on top of another $8 million shortfall.

They decided to use an innovative solution to reach out to people -- asking citizens for help.

This week in our Meet the Innovators series, we talk to Peter Koht, the economic development coordinator for Santa Cruz, who told us how they solved such a big problem.

Additional Resources

(Santa Cruz budget Web site)

(Koht speaking at Gov 2.0 Expo)

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Meet the Innovators: HealthMap
There is real concern about the potential spread of H1N1 -- or swine flu this fall.

One of the big issues is tracking the evolution of these diseases.

Enter HealthMap.

Last year, the MIT Media Lab in conjunction with Children's Hospital in Boston created a Web based application that lets anybody track health issues across the country -- and around the world.

In the last few weeks, they have released an iPhone application.

Clark Freifeld is a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab and the co-founder of HealthMap.

He tells the Daily Debrief more about how HealthMap works during this week's Meet the Innovators.

(Learn about past innovators on our Meet the Innovators page.)
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Meet the Innovators: Jay Nath
FederalNewsRadio has been telling you about the federal government's data.gov -- a site where agencies are making public data available in machine readable formats.

That has spurred many other government entities to look at similar ideas.

In fact, in San Francisco, they are using an open source platform to help improve public access to raw government data.

Jay Nath is the manager of innovation for the city and county of San Francisco and explains how he's using open source.

(Check out CivicDB.)

(Learn more at our Meet the Innovators page.)
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Meet the Innovators: AIDS.gov
One of the phrases you hear a lot these days in government agencies is that you have to reach out to people where they are -- and increasingly, people are online.

AIDS.gov -- which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services -- has been one of the real innovators in reaching out to people.

Miguel Gomez is the director of the Web site and tells us more about how he and others are trying to mitigate the effects of this devastating disease.

(Learn more about all of the innovators on our Meet the Innovators page.)
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Meet the Innovators: Vint Cerf Part II
Last week, we brought you the first part of our conversation with Vint Cerf, the man widely referred to as the father of the Internet.

Cerf worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency back in the 1970's and created the technologies that formulate what we know today at the Internet.

Today, Cerf is Google's chief Internet evangelist and we talk to him about how the government can -- and is -- using the Internet.

(Learn more about past innovators at our Meet the Innovators page.)
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> Daily Debrief
Meet the Innovators: Vint Cerf
There is all sorts of discussion about how the government can be innovative -- and with all the focus on what the government is not doing, it can be easy to forget that the creation of the Internet was, in fact, a government innovation.

It was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) back in the 1970's.

The person at DARPA who helped lead that team that created the network protocols that are the basis of the Internet is Vint Cerf -- today widely known as the father of the Internet.

We talk more to Cerf about how the project came about.

(Learn more about past innovators at our Meet the Innovators page.)
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Meet the Innovators: Clay Shirky (Part 2)
Last week, we brought you the first part of our conversation with Clay Shirky.

He is a professor of new media at New York University's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, and he is the author of the book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

Shirky is one of the renowned Web 2.0 gurus out there.

He was also a speaker at the Management of Change conference earlier this month and FederalNewsRadio's Chris Dorobek got to sit down with him.

In this week's edition of Federal News Radio's Meet the Innovators, we talk to Shirky about his thoughts on government 2.0 -- and the challenges that agencies are facing.

(Read more at Here Comes Everybody.)

(Learn more about past innovators at our Meet the Innovators page.)
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Meet the Innovators: Clay Shirky
Web 2.0 has only been around for a few years, but there are a handful of people who can be called legendary.

One of them is Clay Shirky, a professor of new media at New York University's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program.

He is the author of the book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

He was a speaker at the Management of Change conference and FederalNewsRadio's Chris Dorobek got to sit down with him.

We talk with Shirky about his thoughts on government 2.0 and the challenges that agencies are facing.

(Read more at Here Comes Everybody.)

(Learn more about past innovators at our Meet the Innovators page.)
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> Daily Debrief
Meet the Innovators: DAU's Mark Oehlert
Many people believe that innovation and government are an oxymoron.

Most of us know that isn't true, but innovation in government can be difficult.

Today we talk to Mark Oehlert, innovation evangelist for the Defense Acquisition University.

We start off by asking him what exactly a innovation evangelist does.

(Click to hear more Meet the Innovators interviews.)
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Meet the Innovators: Andrew P. Wilson of HHS
The Department of Health and Human Services has really been on the front lines lately: there have been peanut recalls and spinach recalls, and then, of course, there was H1N1 (swine flu) virus.

HHS has really used Web 2.0 to reach out to people.

In our regular series, Meet the Innovators, we talk to Andrew P. Wilson. He is the new media guru for the Department of Health and Human Services.

We asked him for his thoughts on lessons learned after these series of events.

For more info: Young AFCEA Webinar: May 14th - 1 p.m. ET: Social Media and H1N1 Flu Virus: Lessons Learned from the Peanut Recall

Check out more Meet the Innovator interviews!
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Meet the Innovators: Does Gov 2.0 matter?
Does government 2.0 matter?

Tim O'Reilly thinks so.

O'Reilly is almost legendary in the Web 2.0 world.

He is the person who is largely credited with creating the term Web 2.0. -- and this September, O'Reilly Media will hold the Government 2.0 Summit.

He tells us why government 2.0 is so fascinating to him.

Also: read more about other innovators here.

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Meet the Innovators: Social media and Dr. Mark Drapeau
Social media and national security -- they are two terms that seem almost in conflict with one another.

But Dr. Mark Drapeau says, not necessarily.

Drapeau is a fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University.

In our regular series, Meet the Innovators, we spoke to Drapeau, about how social media and government 2.0 can help improve national security.

Hear more of Dr. Drapeau on Amtower Off Center.

(Also: check out more interviews from Meet the Innovators!)

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Meet the Innovators: Challenges and Gov 2.0
Innovation can be difficult in government, which is one of the reasons many people are interested in applying Web 2.0 tools to government.

Today on FederalNewsRadio's ongoing series, Meet the Innovators, we talk to Anthony Williams, co-author of the book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

Williams is also the Founder and CEO of the Toronto-based firm Anthony D. Williams Consulting and tells us about some of the challenges of government innovation.

Learn more about Williams' upcoming event at Dorobek Insider.

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> Daily Debrief
Meet the Innovators: EPA's Web 2.0 Initiative
Many agencies are looking to dive into social media these days - there is Facebook and Twittter and scores of others. But there are all sorts of hurdles, and these government collaborators are collaborating about collaboration.

As part of Federal News Radio's ongoing series, Meet the Innovators, today we talk to Jeffrey Levy, director of Web communications in EPA's Office of Public Affairs, and one of the founders of the Government Social Media SubCouncil. We started out talking to him about the the social media sub-council is.

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