“Citizens of the 21st century need public technologists like citizens of the 19th century needed municipal engineers to build the drains and clean water supplies.”

• A manifesto for public technology

ARGO believes modernizing government operations has a unique urgency and importance. The flames of today’s tribalistic politics are fueled by a deep distrust in government and not unfounded skepticism that we can still deliver big public works. That reality will only be exacerbated as transformational technology like human augmentation with brain computer interfaces split our species into pure and post human tribes.

Those digital technologies offer tremendous potential to uplift the human condition, though as we have seen in recent events, also tremendous potential to fracture humanity further along old fault lines. The fifteen theses below articulate ARGO’s vision for how to achieve that necessary modernization in government operations to help navigate today’s transformational shifts brought about by the digital revolution.

1. Inspiration from nondigital public technologies

Why not manage public data like water — a common resource required for all life? We too quickly forget that “legacy” institutions like plain vanilla public water utilities were radical innovations for their time. The new concept of a public utility enabled (near) ubiquitous access to clean water and pioneering infrastructure that safeguarded water supplies for future generations (not to mention building some of the few man made structures you can see from space!). So what might we learn from the water industry as we look to take the public technologist movement to the next level?

2. Making public technology a priority

California needs to pioneer a new deal for public technology. Creating A Public technology Corps inspired by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps who planted nearly 3 Billion trees to help reforest America and its green infrastructure could serve local California communities and public services with state of the art technology skills.

A Public Tech Corps, funded by the State and Local Government could manage public data professionally, and like US Army Corps of Engineers build the digital equivalent of the physical infrastructure that we take for granted. The California State Water Project wasn’t built on nights and weekends. Building modern public data infrastructure does not require new resources so much as seed capital to catalyze change, raise new revenues and reallocate existing funds.

3. Building public data infrastructure

Legacy systems and an excel-for-everything mindset not only cost more but preclude new approaches to tackling civic challenges by scattering key information across local machines. Public data can pipe through integrated infrastructure, flowing seamlessly and securely across municipal jurisdictions. This integration should be purpose-driven and build upon collaboratively developed data standards to ensure the resulting infrastructure supports meaningful measurement of important public outcomes.

4. Streamlining data sharing

While open by default, sensitive personally identifiable data can be securely shared with the academic researchers and other qualified analysts that can make use of it for public benefit using proven models for sharing sensitive data and conducting independent research that measures what works.