There is a growing reciprocal relationship between the U.S. government and the tech sector. Seasoned computing pros are lending their skills to public agencies, while the government invests funds to raise the country’s tech IQ and fill the skills shortage.

“The government is who shows up to help, and so we need the tech sector to show up,” said Megan Smith (pictured), 3rd United States chief technology officer and chief executive officer at Shift7.co. While working under the Obama administration, Smith worked on initiatives to attract highly skilled technologists to government.

Technology can improve government services for the general population, as well as those in great need, such as veterans, elders and foster children, Smith added. “We have the money, so let’s make it happen the way the tech sector’s delivering Amazon packages or searches,” she said.

Smith spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during a live interview at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Orlando, Florida.

Ask what you can do for coding

The government is beseeching techies to contribute their skills though a number of initiatives. The Presidential Innovation Fellow is a one-year term of service that pairs high-level technologists with civil servants to tackle major federal issues. The U.S. Digital Service is a three-months to two-year term of service geared toward improving the user experience of digital government services.

Smith is also engaged in building the pipeline to tech jobs through early exposure. She helped create the Computer Science for All program to mandate computer science training in public schools. “Coding is a 21st century fluency. It’s a skill we all need, like freshman biology,” she said.

She also worked to set up TechHire, a bootcamp program that recruits and trains individuals for computing jobs. There are 600,000 tech jobs open in the United States, and they pay 50 percent more than the average American salary, according to Smith.

“The companies are starving,” she said. TechHire is out to change the public’s notions about technology careers. “They think, ‘I don’t know how to do that.’ Well, you can. This is a fun and interesting and exciting career.”

The bootcamps may be as brief as three months and sometimes pay a stipend, she stated.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Photo: SiliconANGLE