SBA’s Presidential Innovation Fellows will specifically work on the RFP-EZ program, which will create a platform that makes it easier for innovative small businesses to sell to the federal government.   This program also helps enable agencies to quickly source low-cost, high-impact information technology solutions.

Often times, we hear from companies that the federal government is too difficult or too complicated to work with, especially when it comes to doing business.  The SBA’s Presidential Innovation Fellows will work to streamline this process through the RFP-EZ program.   The end result is better and less expensive products and services for the federal government, saving taxpayer dollars and easier access to the government marketplace for high-growth start-ups, helping to fuel job growth throughout the country.

Below is more information about SBA’s Presidential Innovation Fellows:

Adam Becker is a software developer and entrepreneur.  He co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of a civic-oriented startup called GovHub that aims to facilitate communication between citizens and their elected officials in local government.  Previously, Adam built a wealth of experience in different web development projects, with his very first effort being a website for his junior-high punk band. 

Clay Johnson's career at the intersection of government and technology began as the Director of Sunlight Labs at the Sunlight Foundation, where he built a community of 2,000 developers, designers and technologists dedicated to helping government be more open and transparent with its stakeholders.  After Sunlight, Clay worked as the director of Engagement at Expert Labs where he worked with federal agencies to help embrace and use social media.  Recently, Clay wrote the bestselling book The Information Diet, which explores the parallels between our media and food consumption.  Clay was named the Google/O’Reilly Open Source Organizer of the year in 2009, was one of Federal Computing Week’s Fed 100 in 2010, and won the CampaignTech Innovator award in 2011.

Jed Wood is an interaction designer, developer, and entrepreneur.  Having built experience as a usability expert, he wandered into geekier pastures of writing actual code.  He has spent the past decade bridging the gap between design and programming by creating rapid prototypes and production applications.  Jed co-founded Lime & Chile, building three web applications that were later acquired.  Most recently, he was part of the Labs team at Gravity Tank. 

Follow SBA’s Presidential Innovation Fellows’ progress on the RFP-EZ program via Twitter.

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