Recovery.gov

By Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Microsoft Federal 

Earlier this week, the federal government and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board took a giant step toward increasing transparency and accountability across all levels of government with the launch of enhanced capabilities on Recovery.gov, a public-facing web portal that allows citizens and communities to track stimulus funding.  Recovery.gov not only provides information on where stimulus funds have been allocated, but also updates citizens on how local projects are progressing and what additional funds may be available to help their communities.  For information on local activity, citizens just have to type in their zip code and can access graphical representations of funding in their area.  The portal also has the ability to analyze and track reports of waste, fraud and abuse, increasing accountability and helping to ensure the best return on taxpayer investment.  To sum it up, the site is really designed to give us, as citizens, unprecedented visibility into how our tax dollars are  being spent.  Once you see recovery.gov – you start thinking, ‘why can’t I see this level of information around all government spending.’ 

Recovery.gov is a great example of Gov 2.0, as its interoperable technologies power the portal seamlessly to increase government transparency.  Microsoft partners Smartronix and Synteractive led construction of the website, and talk about interoperability – the portal uses Microsoft SharePoint for content management, Amazon web services, Microsoft SQL Server for data warehousing, and solutions from ESRI and Business Objects Software for virtualization, analysis and reporting.  Recovery.gov also integrates with social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, allowing citizens to share information and collaborate on solutions. 

We are so proud to have played a role in this exciting new application, which can support millions of hits per hour.  Additional data will be added to the website throughout October, and will be published to allow developers to work with it in new ways.  

In the meantime, check out Recovery.gov today to access the government information that is now at every citizen’s fingertips.