GSA's 18F Demo Day Previews Cutting-Edge Projects For Gov & Small Biz

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than 100 DC-area small business owners and representatives from across federal government got a firsthand look Friday at upcoming projects developed by 18F, the recently launched digital incubator at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).

GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini welcomed attendees to the agency's 18F Demo Day and encouraged participants to challenge the status quo: "In a world where technology has radically changed how we live and work, we have to think about how we can improve every system we use to serve the American people. The simple truth is that if we can create better systems and processes, we will get better results. I'm proud that GSA is doing that in a variety of ways, including developing 18F."

18F developers and designers demonstrated how the team builds solutions, works with partners to  provide additional expertise and needed core capacity, and consults on how to build and buy user-centric interfaces most effectively.  

Projects Featured at Demo Day:

• Midas Innovation Platform: Midas is an open source software platform, developed in partnership with the Department of State, that facilitates innovation and collaborative work. Any agency, office, mission, or individual can post projects or tasks online to collaborate with other federal employees.

• FBOpen: FBOpen is a set of open-source tools to help businesses search for opportunities to work with the U.S. Government. The FBOpen website,fbopen.gsa.gov, is a simple, user friendly page where you can search for available federal contracts, grants, and other opportunities. Anyone can add an FBOpen query to their own website using theFBOpen widget-maker. Programmers can use theFBOpen API to build custom query pages and analysis tools.

• SBIR Search: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) search — built on the FBOpen API — makes the filtering, inclusion, addition, and updating of SBIR opportunities more efficient. The search links opportunities to the original system of record (FedBizOpps or Grants.gov) for automated updates.

For more information on 18F, visit https://18f.gsa.gov.

SOURCE U.S. General Services Administration