Alissa Black

Alissa Black is principal of investments at Omidyar Network. At the Omidyar Network, she is working to improve the relationship between citizens and government through driving sector-level change in government and the emerging civic technology ecosystem. Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Black was director of the California Civic Innovation Project (CCIP) at New America Foundation, where she was responsible for developing the project’s strategy and managing the research portfolio.

Weekly Roundup: April 20 - 24, 2015

Rating Federal Mobile-Friendly Websites. Google implemented a new policy regarding the ranking of mobile-friendly websites on its search engine. NextGov tested Google’s ranking criteria on 28 large federal agency websites and found that about half met the criteria and half didn’t. Where is your agency on the list? Bloomberg and Big Data – The “What Works” City Initiative.

End of the Space Shuttle & the Beginning of Commercial Space: Leadership, Change, and Private-Public Partnerships

Columbia shuttle disaster of 2003, there was almost universal recognition that the space shuttle had to be replaced. In 2004, President George W. Bush directed NASA to build a shuttle successor as part of an overall “vision” to explore deep space. Then-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe put the possibility of launching cargo and eventually crew to the ISS through private commercial means on the NASA agenda. In 2005, Michael Griffin, O’Keefe’s successor, established a program – Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) – to do just that.

Transforming Government Through Technology

The federal government can reduce costs while improving services by adapting private sector cost reduction strategies and technologies to achieve similar benefits in government. This objective is highlighted by a recent report, led by the Technology CEO Council (TCC), in which the IBM Center for The Business of Government participated.

Leadership, Change, and Public-Private Partnerships

This report continues the IBM Center’s long interest in leadership, transformation, and the use of innovative public-private partnerships. It explores how NASA leaders have leveraged public-private partnerships to replace the space shuttle, while developing new policy mechanisms to enable private companies to take over cargo and astronaut transport to the International Space Station (ISS). The author focuses on the evolution of this