GSA launching office to house White House innovation office’s centers of excellence

The General Services Administration is creating an office to manage a variety of centers of excellence on behalf of the White House’s Office of American Innovation, according to new procurement documents.

For some time, OAI officials have spoken of their intent to create technology centers of excellence — basically innovation hubs that specialize in various subject matters and spread best practices to federal agencies to provide both greater quality and consistency. A request for information posted by GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service shows that the White House office is looking to launch centers focused on identity and authentication, cloud computing, data access and consolidated contact centers.

GSA’s program management office wants help from industry standing up the office and four centers. Industry “will function as a catalyst for all referenced tasks by providing analytical reporting tools and techniques to ensure a successful outcome,” the RFI says.

The procurement document stresses the need for contractors who can successfully work with several agencies at a time to drive and measure technology modernization.

The office will be part full-time government employees and part contractors, who will provide support “including project management assistance/guidance, acting as the support catalyst for completing all plans/activities, creating a centralized approach to track progress against metrics, associated Executive-level interactive dashboards, and Agile Project Management/Change Management support,” the solicitation says.

GSA anticipates eventually contracting for three years of support for the centers of excellence.