Nico Papafil, director of the 10x program at the General Services Administration, said 10x will fund more ideas that seek to improve the digital customer experience in fiscal year 2022, Federal News Network reported Friday.
“We’re just asking the question, ‘what problems [are you] trying to solve?’ And we actually added these investment themes to kind of create some guidelines that just show where we want to add weight for the types of ideas we want to select,” Papafil said during a webinar Thursday.
He said the program will be looking at three themes and the first two will focus on how to improve the way the public engages with the government and how to enhance digital services in relation to climate change.
“And the last one is equity and delivery. How are we better, as a government, providing more equitable service to underserved and underpopulated and underrepresented communities? And so those are the themes that we’re going to be looking at,” Papafil added.
According to the report, interested stakeholders have until Nov. 16 to propose ideas. The program expects the selected Phase I projects to begin by March 2022.
Papafil also noted that the program is also working on the Benefits Eligibility Awareness Recognition Service, which seeks to establish a centralized resource that would inform and direct citizens to federal government benefits they are eligible for.