a16z Podcast: Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care

The a16z Show

a16z

Culture, Business, Science, Disruption, Technology, Software Eating The World, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2017

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When people think of modernizing government, they tend to think of new IT, of improved procurement, of new infrastructure ... rather than social services like foster care or food stamps. But how can we actually help improve daily lives -- less in the...

Transcript

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0:00.0	The content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business tax
0:05.6	or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed
0:10.3	at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. For more details, please see A16Z.com
0:16.8	slash disclosures. Hi, welcome to the A16D podcast. We're recording from Capitol Hill on the
0:23.4	Senate side this time over in the Russell Senate building. I'm here with Senator Todd Young of
0:29.2	Indiana, along with Jimmy Chen, who is the CEO of Propel. These days, when people talk about
0:34.8	government and tech, they think about modernizing data systems,
0:39.9	they think about modernizing IT, some of the infrastructure. A lot of the issues that the two of you
0:44.7	have chosen to focus on don't get a lot of attention. Senator Young, so when you were in the
0:48.4	house last term, you sponsored this bill, the modernizing the interstate placement of children
0:52.2	and foster care. What motivated you to take on this problem? Well, starting at a high level, I represented in my congressional
0:57.5	district, Scott County, Indiana. This is ground zero for the opioid crisis. And what has happened
1:04.6	is so many children of opiate addicts find themselves in our foster care system. It's overloaded Indiana's foster
1:12.9	care system, and it got me to looking into how that system was managed. And so let's just say
1:18.8	our existing foster care system is suboptimal in that regard. So it was designed to serve people
1:24.8	in a given state when really an interstate solution was needed.
1:28.7	Some of the problems just to very quickly itemize them.
1:31.5	It's a paper-based system, so it's really slow.
1:34.3	Extra costs are associated with looking through the paper for staffing and for equipment and supplies and maintenance of all the records.
1:42.3	And then it's opaque as well.
1:43.8	I mean, you don't have the ability to log into a system and figure out the disposition of a the records. And then it's opaque as well. I mean, you don't have the ability
1:44.7	to log into a system and figure out the disposition of a particular case. So I knew we could do
	...

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