18F Blog

Machine learning is a subfield of computer science that focuses on the problem of learning from data. We think there’s a big opportunity to make government more efficient by using the massive paper trail that government agencies have been creating over the decades as datasets for machine learning algorithms.

GSA unveiled a refreshed gsa.gov website yesterday with a more crisp design layout, improved usability, and features geared more toward mobile users.

Conventional wisdom often encourages engineers to start with a big architectural overview, but this kind of a grand plan usually leads to technical-debt. Instead of using an architecture-first plan, you should focus on user experience design and software design to help your project avoid technical debt.

Four weeks ago, we announced cloud.gov, a new platform that will enable small federal teams to rapidly develop and deploy web services with best-practice, production-level security and scalability. Currently, we’re running a small pilot program to prepare to open up cloud.gov to all federal agencies. In the meantime, we’d like to lay out some more details about the project and answer some common questions.

We hoped CALC, a powerful labor category and pricing research tool from GSA and 18F, would save federal contracting officers time and money. Turns out, it’s also saving cities time and money. In August, we found out the City of Boston has been using CALC to vet pricing they receive in response to a request for proposals.