News Releases
FirstGov.gov Accelerates Development of Citizen-Centric Electronic Government
June 26, 2001
"The Internet and electronic technology are revolutionizing the way work is done," said GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry. "The concept of e-government brings enormous opportunity for improving speed and efficiency of transactions and creating new business models to provide value and service for citizens in their contacts with government agencies. This is essential to President Bush's initiative for customer-centric, efficient, results-oriented government." The FirstGov gateway offers users a powerful search engine that, in a quarter of a second, searches each and every word in federal and state web pages. The enhanced search feature allows people visiting FirstGov.gov to search all federal web sites, all states, both federal and state, or individual states for information and services as varied as student loans, Medicare options, parks, campsites, the Smithsonian Institution, licenses, and filing taxes. In addition to the search feature, FirstGov provides a topical directory of government information and services by category, direct links to government agencies, and links to dozens of online agency transactions for citizens, businesses, and government. The FirstGov gateway also provides links to a number of cross-agency portals and a central location for citizens to offer suggestions, pose questions, and interact directly with their government. "FirstGov is a government web site that took the first step in providing the public with easy, one-stop access to all online U.S. Federal Government resources," said Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels. "This site is a step toward giving the American people the �Information Age' government they deserve, and we are working to make important improvements to achieve this goal." The ability to search the state web sites through FirstGov was made possible through federal and state collaboration begun earlier this year by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) with the assistance of the National Association for Information Resource Executives. GSA contacted each state and the District of Columbia, one-by-one, to get permission to add their Web pages to FirstGov's powerful search engine. Championed by the Federal Chief Information Officers Council, FirstGov is a Federal government service led by a cross agency board. The FirstGov gateway is managed by Deputy Associate Administrator Deborah Diaz in GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy. The search engine for FirstGov is provided by FedSearch Foundation. The announcement by Perry was made in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils' Management of Change Conference where FirstGov was honored with an Intergovernmental Solutions Award for creating and building a gateway to government information.
Last Reviewed 8/2/2006
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