When Charlie Baker takes his seat in the governor’s office in 2015, he’ll no doubt have a long queue of issues waiting for him. A group of about 100 people that met Wednesday night hopes their issue—closer collaboration between tech and government—will make the priority list.
The event, dubbed an “Idea-a-thon” (as opposed to a hackathon), aimed to come up with proposals for making government work better for startups and new residents—along with other key issues such as reforming independent contractor laws and getting more engineering instruction into schools.
The prize for the winner was a promise that their proposal would be drafted into an actual bill for consideration by the Legislature. But state Sen. Karen Spilka, who spearheaded the event, said all 13 proposals that came out of the night will be summarized in a letter for soon-to-be-Gov. Baker. Spilka is the co-chair of the Legislature's Tech Hub Caucus.
Here are some of the ideas that came out of the event, which was held at PayPal’s StartTank incubator in Boston:
“We need a better portal. We need a better front door.”
• Making it easier for government to pilot products created by startups. Since it’s challenging for startups to approach the government, one possible solution would be for Massachusetts gateway cities to receive regulation relief in exchange for making quick decisions around piloting technologies from startups. There would also be an online portal to help make this interaction possible. This was the winning idea chosen by seven judges, who included iRobot CEO Colin Angle, state Treasurer Steven Grossman and former Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey Mullan.
• More welcoming experience for new residents. Information that new residents want to access—on how to navigate the subways, get a driver’s license, etc.—often doesn't offer a great user experience. The proposal was to create a Net Promoter-like score, of 1-10, for the user experience of dealing with various government agencies. (This idea was a runner-up.)
• Stronger promotion of our products. The proposal was to get the word out about a program in which the state pays half the cost of an intern, and then use those interns to help with marketing of Massachusetts products. (This idea was also a runner-up.)
Spilka said she’s especially focused on helping startups to more easily find out about efforts the government has already made.
“There’s a feeling that government is doing a lot [to try to help startups], but there’s no way for entrepreneurs and startups to know what’s going on, how to connect to it, what exactly they need to be doing,” Spilka said. “We need a better portal. We need a better front door.”
