Washington DC, 7 September 2010

The challenge.gov website is an online challenge platform administered by the US General Services Administration and uses prizes and challenges to promote innovation. Some of the challenges already up on the site ask for 'apps', such as apps for health care. Given the existing drive to provide more open data at data.gov, these challenges may well stimulate the re-use of PSI in the US.

From the About page:

"On Challenge.gov, the government and the public work together to find solutions. Government agencies posts challenges on this site and the public can post solutions to these challenges.

Once a challenge is created, other people can join the challenge to propose a solution, discuss the challenge, and show support. Incentives, which are payable only if a challenge is solved, encourage others to solve a problem and earn their rewards."

The site challenge.gov is an outcome of the Strategy for American Innovation of September 2009 in which President Obama "called on agencies to increase their ability to promote innovation by using tools such as prizes and challenges to solve tough problems." This resulted in a March 2010 memo of the federal Office for Management and Budget detailing the use of prizes and challenges as an instrument, as well as a legal framework and the promise to create a central website for these challenges.

"Through this platform, the public can find all challenges/contests taking place across the Federal Government and participate in those challenges that are of interest to them by discussing the challenge, proposing solutions, and showing support for challenges."