Steve Jobs said that those who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world are the ones who do; and every day we find projects that challenge conventional beliefs to give the world more hope that things can be better.
Purification of water through different methods to make it drinkable in places where it is scarce; technologies to clean oceans; to recycle; and gene editing; are some of the examples that have transformed the schemes.
Big changes may require big steps, but substantial changes can be made by adapting solutions already implemented in other fields and fitting them into new ones.
An example of this is the work that Haley Van Dyck and her team are doing for the US government.
What is Haley Van Dyck’s project?
It is a startup within the White House, which is called United States Digital Services (USDS); and its mission is to close the dichotomy of being able to use technology to obtain private services, but not to request basic government services.
If technology allows us to do things in a simpler way, such as calling a taxi, requesting lodging or asking for addresses; Why do war veterans have to wait 137 days to access government benefits?
Based on this problem, many other failures are broken down that could be solved with the use of technology that is already being used to cover other needs.
“Government failures to deliver digital services that work are disproportionately impacting the people who need them most,” says Haley Van Dyck.
In addition, she says that more than 10 years ago, projects were started to migrate procedures from physical to virtual; but after more than 1 Billion dollars and 6 years, none of them paid off.
The main cause lies in mismanagement. However, in a short time USDS has shown that digitizing processes saves costs and optimizes their duration.
How have they achieved it?
Haley Van Dyck assures that they have taken what has been learned by the private sector of Silicon Valley, about how to provide digital services worldwide; and they are adapting it to the government.
The first thing is to recruit the best possible human talent (they have former workers from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, among others, who have preferred to contribute their grain of sand for a better country).
Then they bring them together with the people who are already in the government, trying to create change. And they focus them on solving specific tasks related to the services that the government offers and give them a massive coverage area from government agencies to the president; so they can transform services for the better.
Cases such as the long immigration process filled by millions of applicants around the world, is one of the examples that it is possible to optimize time and resources.
Similarly, the Green Card replacement process that took 6 months; Now it can be done completely online.
Other great beneficiaries are war veterans, who now have everything they need in a single site https://www.vets.gov; which has been designed by those who know the failings of the government better than anyone: The war veterans themselves.
Conclusion.
Surely many entrepreneurs are able to change the ways of providing services by Latin American governments; and it is clear that many countries would benefit from this.
Are you up to it?
There is no need to wait to act until you have the final idea to save the world. Many simple ideas can affect large numbers of people and if you believe you can do it; Don’t waste time…take a risk!
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