From the G & M:
"Hack the border: Governments asked to enlist whiz kids to end delays"
Frustrated by costly delays at the Canada-U.S. border, the business community is urging governments to seek solutions from private-sector whiz kids.The national governments are being pressed to adopt a model popularized by high-tech startups during the original dot.com boom in the 1990s: gather a bunch of software engineers in one room, give them a problem to solve, and promise a prize. They call it a hackathon. Leading business groups are requesting that kind of hackathon for the border, unsatisfied by the pace of progress following years of government efforts to reduce wait times.
It’s been raised repeatedly lately with public officials by the Canadian American Business Council, which counts six dozen companies and an advisory board that includes the two countries’ ambassadors to each other. The group’s Maryscott Greenwood took it up after meeting with White House officials this summer, when they explained how the hackathon model had been used in U.S. disaster preparedness. She suggested that kind of approach might help the Beyond the Border program, the delay-fighting initiative announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama in 2011. She brought it up again at a binational border conference in Ottawa last month, a regulatory co-operation meeting in Washington this month, and in conversations with cabinet ministers — U.S. Homeland Security boss Jeh Johnson, and Canada’s Industry Minister James Moore. One official at the Privy Council Office wouldn’t announce whether the idea was under consideration; he only said there would be recommendations made to the countries’ leaders later this year as part of the governments’ Beyond the Border Action Plan implementation plan.
It’s not like the idea would be revolutionary. Governments in both countries have already begun using the startup-culture approach to solving problems. The home-rental app Airbnb also launched a project, aimed at pre-identifying homes that could shelter displaced people and emergency workers during a crisis. Then the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare health-exchange website last fall only bolstered the U.S. administration’s determination to modernize its procurement procedures. The idea of a prize for improving the border came from someone at the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who told Greenwood how rewards had been used elsewhere to attract participants.
^ I am curious to see if anything will really change and make things better and faster at the US/Canadian border. ^
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/hack-the-border-governments-asked-to-enlist-whiz-kids-to-end-delays/article21156587/
"Hack the border: Governments asked to enlist whiz kids to end delays"
Frustrated by costly delays at the Canada-U.S. border, the business community is urging governments to seek solutions from private-sector whiz kids.The national governments are being pressed to adopt a model popularized by high-tech startups during the original dot.com boom in the 1990s: gather a bunch of software engineers in one room, give them a problem to solve, and promise a prize. They call it a hackathon. Leading business groups are requesting that kind of hackathon for the border, unsatisfied by the pace of progress following years of government efforts to reduce wait times.
It’s been raised repeatedly lately with public officials by the Canadian American Business Council, which counts six dozen companies and an advisory board that includes the two countries’ ambassadors to each other. The group’s Maryscott Greenwood took it up after meeting with White House officials this summer, when they explained how the hackathon model had been used in U.S. disaster preparedness. She suggested that kind of approach might help the Beyond the Border program, the delay-fighting initiative announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama in 2011. She brought it up again at a binational border conference in Ottawa last month, a regulatory co-operation meeting in Washington this month, and in conversations with cabinet ministers — U.S. Homeland Security boss Jeh Johnson, and Canada’s Industry Minister James Moore. One official at the Privy Council Office wouldn’t announce whether the idea was under consideration; he only said there would be recommendations made to the countries’ leaders later this year as part of the governments’ Beyond the Border Action Plan implementation plan.
It’s not like the idea would be revolutionary. Governments in both countries have already begun using the startup-culture approach to solving problems. The home-rental app Airbnb also launched a project, aimed at pre-identifying homes that could shelter displaced people and emergency workers during a crisis. Then the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare health-exchange website last fall only bolstered the U.S. administration’s determination to modernize its procurement procedures. The idea of a prize for improving the border came from someone at the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who told Greenwood how rewards had been used elsewhere to attract participants.
^ I am curious to see if anything will really change and make things better and faster at the US/Canadian border. ^
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/hack-the-border-governments-asked-to-enlist-whiz-kids-to-end-delays/article21156587/
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