By: Malini Sekhar, Communicator-in-Residence, HHS IDEA Lab
A new vision and approach to greater health calls for a world where everyone is a changemaker. Where everyone is empowered with that belief. Even government employees working in a corner of a large, hierarchical bureaucracy.
I have been working as a software development project manager at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for seven years. In 2013, I had the good fortune of being part of a project team that was selected for the Ignite Accelerator. Our project involved prototyping and then building an online repository for biomedically-relevant, 3D-printable files, called the NIH 3D Print Exchange.
The Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG) at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Office of Human Resources was confronted with the specific challenge of how to transfer complicated programs to new owners with no familiarity, so their team decided to build a tool to solve their specific problem and a host of others along the way.
In 2010, conversations with more than 70 staff at CDC identified a lack of early stage funding as a top barrier to innovation. To fill this "pioneer gap" the Office of the Associate Director for Science (OADS), Office of Technology and Innovation sponsors the Innovation Fund (iFund).
We provide concentrated opportunity for experimentation. We provide a safe space where new ideas, cultivated by people, can grow. We take project ideas at all stages of development, from the nascent to the tested, and help them demonstrate value and get woven back into the organization so as to generate real impact.
