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DOL working through over 200 pitches as part of emerging tech program

The agency is assessing solutions to help fast-track IT modernization and streamline unemployment insurance claims.
Department of Labor
The Department of Labor building in Washington, D.C. (NCinDC / Flickr)

The Department of Labor is working through more than 200 pitches from tech providers as part of its innovation incubator program, according to the department’s chief technology officer.

The agency is assessing potential uses of new solutions to help fast-track IT modernization and to streamline unemployment insurance claims.

Since the arrival of Chief Innovation Officer Chike Aguh in February last year, the Department of Labor (DOL) has launched an emerging tech incubator and focused on expanding research and development for open government, digital products and new technologies.

“Now we have a number of these pilots, we are working to understand which of these can be supported with a clear business use case,” Sanjay Koyani told FedScoop Tuesday at the UiPath public sector summit produced by FedScoop.

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Koyani added that the agency’s other key priorities are ensuring cultural change and leveraging cloud environments to test out new AI tools. In recent months the agency has adopted at least 11 bots, according to the CTO. 

In March, the DOL CIO Gundeep Ahluwalia highlighted the department’s 50 top IT modernization needs, and said it is focused on taking a “multi-pronged approach,” driven in large part by pursuing money from the federal Technology Modernization Fund (TMF).

Outside of direct appropriations from Congress, Labor is a major proponent of using the TMF. 

John Hewitt Jones

Written by John Hewitt Jones

John is the managing editor of FedScoop, and was previously a reporter at Institutional Investor in New York City. He has a master’s degree in social policy from the London School of Economics and his writing has appeared in The Scotsman and The Sunday Times of London newspapers.

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