Fearless joins coalition of agile federal government-facing tech firms

Dev agency Fearless joined a new coalition of firms working together to bring agile development methodology to federal government contracting.

According to a blog post, the Digital Services Coalition (DSC) formed recently with 16 small and midsize firms who provide services in the public sector.

Fearless, which is based at Spark Baltimore, has worked on federal government projects such as the U.S. Small Business Administration’s HUBZone program, as well as the Woodlawn-based Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services‘ Blue Button 2.0 API.

“We want to make technology work for the people and make it more efficient for all taxpayers and residents,” said Fearless founder @delalidzirasa and that’s why Fearless is joining the @dscoalition https://t.co/tGO6A4yvMK pic.twitter.com/vJ14QMHXfo

— Fearless (@fearlessbmore) June 12, 2019

The DSC aims to bring the agile approaches that allow for collaboration, efficiency and transparency that are being used in the private sector to federal government work, a Medium post states. Collectively, the firms work on a notable group of agencies’ websites including SBA.gov, Search.gov, Healthcare.gov, Vets.gov, Login.gov and VA.gov. Now they want to collaborate.

“Traditionally, the relationship between government and industry is often antagonistic and viewed as zero-sum. For a vendor to win, the government must lose, which results in poor outcomes for taxpayers, users and government employees,” said Dan Levenson, chief strategy officer of Agile 6, another founding DSC member, in a statement. “The DSC is a critical component to reframing this relationship as one team that is built upon meeting a shared definition of success. By focusing on humans first, we can fundamentally transform the working relationship between government and the private sector.”

Along with working together, the coalition also wants to support efforts to bring digital-minded improvement to government services like 18F and USDS. Those efforts started inside government. Now the firms want to introduce such an approach to the contracting side. They’re also looking to provide education and mentorship to other firms.

“We want to get more firms like us working with government agencies,” Fearless founder Delali Dzirasa said in the post. “A commercial service provider might want to work with the government but they need education on how to make it happen.”

Applications are being accepted from other firms interested in joining.