Public Innovation Academy Offers Practical Training for Gov

Source: Gov Tech Published: September 16, 2020

A veteran of gov tech work is launching an online training program called the Public Innovation Academy, which aims to go beyond the scope of programs that most often target C-level or executive participants.

The Public Innovation Academy, which is currently under development with a two-phase launch slated to start closer to the end of the year, is being led by Abhi Nemani, who helped build the nation’s pre-eminent civic tech group, Code for America, and has also served as chief data officer of Los Angeles, as well as the first CIO of Sacramento, Calif. Nemani describes his new online training venture as being aimed at helping people who perform jobs that aren’t necessarily technical, yet are being asked to rapidly use more technology as our reliance on it accelerates.

Another hope for the new venture, Nemani said, is that the programming will be able to take the lessons and practices learned by large jurisdictions and share them with those who work within small or mid-sized cities, too. The idea would be to enroll attendees from smaller cities that might not have the resources for a position such as chief data officer but could benefit from basic lessons that CDOs in places like Los Angeles or New York bring to the table. The e-learning courses would even involve current or former CDOs from the larger places as something like guest lecturers.

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