How Government Could Serve as the Platform for a New Economy

One of the key constructs underlying the concept of Government as a Platform (GaaP) for innovation is the use of application programing interfaces to create new applications or enhance old ones.  

The term “API economy” describes this ecosystem where APIs are used to expand business models. Within government, this becomes an environment where agencies, business partners or constituents can create new value by overlaying government services with complementary private services or by reconfiguring services in ways that are more intuitive and citizen-centric.

The APIs may be created by the government itself, third party developers or even private citizens – they may be open to all or to a limited set of users, or be used purely to enable internal integration within the organization.

There are at least four reasons why agencies should embrace the API economy:

Create new services more efficiently. APIs are changing how governments think about building and deploying services. Government processes and data no longer need to be locked inside fragmented, unconnected and uncoordinated legacy applications. One example is the ability to build new collaborative care models, such as those for children in foster families. These can be built significantly faster if they are able to access data and services in existing departmental applications through APIs and supported by agreed data-sharing protocols.

Improve integration. Tech-savvy citizens expect to be able to access government services without having to jump between different websites, departments, and programs. This requirement drives the need for more API integration. Integration may be in the form of connecting government functions between endpoints or using API mashups, which is a rapid way of integrating API services to compose a new service through a single API.

Attract citizens to government services. Targetization has become the hallmark of e-government maturity.  For example, new healthcare insurance services under the Affordable Care Act are targeted to eligible and underserved citizens often by third parties, known as “navigators.”  Navigators use APIs to reach communities that government agencies may have difficulty reaching on their own.

Create flexibility. APIs offer public agencies opportunities to rapidly and easily take advantage of new capabilities in areas such as mobility, social platforms, analytics, contextually aware computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and wearable tech devices. For example, APIs for geospatial targeting can be combined with existing government services to enhance those services. APIs also are at the core of the most successful open data initiatives, by enabling multiple methods of consuming data and turning it into something of further value.

The relationship between APIs and GaaP is intertwined. Agencies that approach Government as a Platform for innovation will necessarily create a more coherent, unified IT architecture to support API management and facilitate third-party access.  

Cloud computing plays an integral role. GaaP’s cloud infrastructure, tools and API libraries will allow app developers, irrespective of whether they are citizens, private organizations or other public agencies, to develop new value added services using published government data. The platform becomes the connecting layer between public agencies’ systems of record, private citizens, organizations and other agencies that wish to consume that data.

Mobile computing further reinforces the relationship. API-centric development is particularly applicable to the development of mobile “systems of engagement” that either consume data from, or supply it to, back-end “systems of record.”

APIs will in turn enable other aspects of GaaP, including open data and shared services. They are the logical tool to allow data to be accessed, analyzed and incorporated into apps that bring value to some segment of the population. And APIs become components of the services that are shared. We anticipate that a well-evolved shared service arrangement in the future will have its own catalog of in-house and 3rd party APIs.

GaaP and API management represent important new dimensions of focus for government. GaaP allows public agencies to deliver APIs as building blocks for other public agencies, private developers, citizens and public employees. APIs enable the creation of new capabilities and models of service delivery that we may not even be able to imagine today.

Peter Williams is chief technology officer for Big Green Innovations at IBM, where Jan Gravesen is client technical leader for California and Trinette Brownhill is information architect for Government Industry. 

(Image via Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock.com)