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These past few months have been especially proud ones for me at the Federal Communications Commission for one very simple reason: I have had the privilege of being part of a team that put the principles of smart government to work.  Yesterday, the Commission released a bipartisan Order comprehensively reforming the Lifeline program, the culmination of months of effort to clean-up and modernize this vital program.

Lifeline is a program that helps low-income Americans afford phone service by providing them with a monthly discount on their phone bills, averaging $9.25, paid for by our universal service fund. The program has been around since 1985, and over that time, the percentage of low-income families with phones has increased from 80% to nearly 92%.  But the program’s problems have also increased, especially after the Commission in 2008 made it easier for pre-paid wireless providers to participate.

The pre-paid services proved very popular, in part because the companies priced their plans so the Lifeline subsidy covered the whole bill, allowing them to advertise “free” phones.  Unfortunately, Lifeline’s rules were built for the kitchen phone, not the cell phone. As a result, some consumers got multiple subsidized phones – something that didn’t happen in the hard-wired wall phone days.   Some companies were enrolling consumers who weren’t eligible.  Some companies were collecting a $30 bounty every time they signed someone up..

Wednesday, at the first-ever Digital Learning Day Town Hall in Washington, DC, FCC Chairman Genachowski and Secretary of Education Duncan challenged states and the education and technology industries to get digital textbooks into the hands of all students in five years. Barriers to adoption of digital textbooks include: antiquated state procurement rules, lack of device and content interoperability, and connectivity costs. 

Six months ago, Genachowski and Duncan launched an effort with business and education leaders to help schools make the transition to digital textbooks. At yesterday’s event, this collaborative presented them with the “Digital Textbook Playbook,” a resource for schools making the move to digital learning.  As a next step, Genachowski and Duncan announced a meeting in March 2012 with education CEOs, state officials, and nonprofit leaders to advance the national adoption of digital textbooks.

The FCC has been working since the 1990s, via its E-Rate program, to connect every library and classroom in America to the Internet. Now it is time for the next broadband-enabled learning revolution; digital textbooks offer lessons personalized to students’ learning styles and aptitudes that enable real-time data and feedback to parents and teachers. Key facts:

Building a website that serves many audiences is a complex challenge. And it is a challenge best met in partnership with the site’s frequent users.

That’s why today we are excited to announce the public Beta launch of MyFCC, and to solicit and encourage your feedback, questions and recommendations as part of our commitment to continual improvement of the FCC.gov experience.

MyFCC is a new tool designed to let you create a customized FCC online experience for quick access to the tools and information you need. Personalization options built into MyFCC make it possible to easily create, save and manage a customized page, choosing from a menu of “widgets” featuring a wide variety of the FCC’s most frequently used tools and services. Examples include the latest headlines and official documents, the Daily Digest, and quick access to forms and online filings. The public Beta offers 22 such widgets for starters, with more on the way.

With its various customization options, MyFCC not only lets you set up a personalized page, but also allows any individual or group to easily share content where it’s needed -- either on my.fcc.gov or on other websites. Each individual widget can be embedded on any other website and you can also create full dashboards of widgets to share with friends and colleagues.

Last April, Knight Foundation and the Federal Communications Commission challenged developers and citizens from across the country to develop apps that deliver personalized, actionable information for the Apps for Communities Challenge. As a result, we received almost 70 entries from around the U.S., from California to Pennsylvania.

The challenge awards $100,000 in prizes to winning application developers and is intended to bring together providers of public data, developers, and traditionally underserved populations through a national contest.

Today, the FCC and the Knight Foundation are proud to announce the winners of the Apps for Communities Challenge, developers who answered the call to make local public information more usable and more actionable, making the benefits of broadband more tangible for all Americans. They’ve created apps that directly connect citizens to public information, like social services, job listings, fresh food locations, resources for the homeless and education training. Our winners inspired us with their creativity and commitment to helping communities in need across our country.

The wait is over, and the winners of the Apps for Communities Challenge include:

$30,000 — Grand Prize:

Yak.bus by Ryan Resella, San Francisco, California.