On August 29, OPM hosted the group Drupal4Gov for an event about open source technology and the Federal Digital Government Strategy. More than 100 people attended the event. They discussed how agencies can use open source applications (e.g., Drupal or WordPress) for:
- Managing their technology more effectively and with lower costs
- Creating websites that are easy to use on different devices and screen sizes through mobile apps and new techniques such as responsive design
Deputy Chief of Staff Justin Johnson and Chief Information Officer Matthew Perry gave an overview of OPM's work and then introduced the two keynote speakers. Gray Brooks, Senior API Strategy at the Digital Services Innovation Center, talked about the impact of the Digital Government Strategy, and Joshua Davis, founder of Mil-OSS, spoke of the Defense Department's work in making open source software secure.
After the keynotes, there were conference sessions on data and security, policy, and advanced technical topics, as well as a hands-on workshop.
The workshop was the second meeting of the Drupal4Gov Ladder community, a governmentwide group of developers who meet regularly to create open source modules and applications for free distribution to government agencies. Over 50 participants broke up into 3 groups. Beginners created their first Drupal site. Others learned more advanced techniques. Still others collaborated to create a new Drupal module: in under 3 hours, they decided on features for the module, designed it, tested it, and distributed it for other members of the open source community to use in their sites. This was the Drupal4Gov Ladder community’s first successful effort in creating and distributing a shared module.
The comments participants offered in the closing session were overwhelmingly positive. They were excited about the knowledge they'd gained and their contributions to sharing knowledge among government agencies. They were very grateful to OPM for hosting the event – as one attendee put it: "OPM hit it out of the park hosting us and providing a great event."
Many thanks to all the volunteers who made this event a success!
Follow OPM’s implementation of the Digital Strategy on our Digital Strategy page.