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Here are the four biggest U.S. government technology and defense developments as of June 2024.
Launching the Digital Corps
The United States Digital Corps was officially launched on August 30, 2021. This federal fellowship program was created as a collaboration between several federal agencies, including the General Services Administration, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The initiative was sparked in part by ideas developed through the Federation of American Scientists’ Day One Project, which called for a new approach to recruiting technical talent for government service.
The Digital Corps is housed within the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services department. Its primary purpose is to recruit early-career technologists—people at the beginning of their careers in fields like software engineering, data science, cybersecurity, and user experience design—into the federal workforce. The program operates by providing two-year fellowships that place participants in a variety of federal agencies.
Between its launch in 2021 and the summer of 2024, the Digital Corps ran three full cohorts. In 2022, the first group of 40 fellows was selected. The following year, 48 fellows joined in 2023. In 2024, the program expanded to 70 fellows, drawn from more than 2,000 applications, making selection highly competitive, with an acceptance rate of about 3.5%. By the time of its third cohort, the Digital Corps had already hired over 100 fellows in total.
These fellows were placed across 20 federal agencies, including the General Services Administration, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Placement in different agencies allowed fellows to work on a wide range of initiatives, exposing them to the complexities of government technology and service delivery.
For fellows, participating in the program was not only an opportunity to work on urgent and impactful projects, but also a potential pathway to permanent civil service roles after the two-year fellowship period. The program aimed to make federal service more accessible to younger technologists, a group historically underrepresented in government IT jobs.
There was no 2025 Digital Corps cohort, as a result of a federal hiring freeze that affected new government hiring across departments. Despite this pause, the program’s momentum from 2021 through 2024 positioned it as a significant avenue for the federal government to inject new technical talent into public service.
Modernizing Government Technology
The core goal of the Digital Corps is to modernize government technology and improve digital services for the public. The mechanism behind this effort is the targeted recruitment of technologists with up-to-date skills in fields that are rapidly evolving, such as data analytics, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and digital product design.
Government agencies often face challenges maintaining or upgrading aging technology, known as legacy systems. These legacy systems can be expensive to maintain, difficult to update, and sometimes pose security risks if not properly managed. By bringing in early-career technologists, the Digital Corps seeks to infuse agencies with new ideas and technical expertise to help shift away from outdated systems towards more modern, secure, and user-friendly digital solutions.
Digital Corps fellows have contributed to a range of high-impact projects. For example, one project involved creating a content management system for Vote.gov, the federal government’s primary portal to voter information. This effort aimed to deliver multilingual, accessible, and up-to-date election information to Americans across the country, addressing challenges related to information gaps and language barriers in the voting process.
Another project required leveraging data tools to support the emergency release and resettlement of 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners in 2023. The Digital Corps fellows played a key role in building systems and dashboards that allowed government teams to coordinate support services for these individuals, using real-time data to track needs and progress.
Cybersecurity and secure communications have also been a focus. Digital Corps technologists worked to enable American diplomats abroad to access secure messaging apps not just on mobile devices, but also on their computers. This added flexibility and security to diplomatic communications in high-risk environments.
The fellows helped the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency by developing a registrar to manage requests for.gov domains. This digital platform streamlined the process for state and local agencies to apply for secure government web addresses, making it easier for officials to protect public-facing websites from cyber threats.
In the health policy realm, Digital Corps participants supported the creation of the Health+ Long COVID Report, a federal project aiming to capture and address the experiences of Americans suffering from long COVID. The team also designed FindSupport.gov, a website built for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, providing resources and guides for people dealing with mental health challenges or substance use disorders.
Each of these projects was designed not only to deliver immediate improvements, but also to serve as a model for how government services can be made more accessible, efficient, and secure through modern technology and user-centered design.
The Digital Corps’ impact has been recognized with several awards for innovation. In its first three years, the program received the FedScoop "Innovation of the Year" award in 2022, the Nextgov Rising Star award in 2023, and the Nextgov Federal 100 award in 2024. Individual fellows and program leaders also won “Most Inspiring Up & Comer” awards in both 2024 and 2025, acknowledging their contributions to federal digital transformation.
Collaboration with the United States Digital Service
The United States Digital Service, or USDS, operates as a technology unit within the Executive Office of the President. Based at 736 Jackson Place, Washington, D.C., USDS was established in August 2014, originally in response to the high-profile failure of the HealthCare.gov rollout. USDS’s mission is to deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.
The USDS acts as a consultancy and rapid-response team for technology crises and modernization projects inside federal agencies. Its ongoing work spans over 31 agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Small Business Administration, General Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Since its inception, the USDS has hired over 700 digital service experts into federal government positions, aiming to modernize and enhance the tools, websites, and processes that millions of Americans rely on. By 2024, the USDS had about 230 staff and had seen over 50 of its alumni move into other federal roles focused on digital delivery and public service.
The USDS has created several foundational resources for improving government technology. In 2014, it released a Digital Services Playbook, outlining best practices for building effective digital public services. The following year, it published the U.S. Web Design Standards, a set of guidelines for making government sites accessible and mobile-friendly. It also developed the TechFAR Handbook to help federal agencies modernize procurement and contracting for technology projects.
USDS projects have had measurable impact. Its collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs led to the redevelopment of VA.gov, which incorporated input from over 5,000 veterans and their families. The redesign boosted customer satisfaction with the website from an average of 53% to 69%, and at its peak, the site logged more than 1.7 million visits per month.
The USDS helped the Department of Homeland Security shift the naturalization process for immigrants online, leading to 100% of naturalization applications being processed electronically. In the public health space, USDS was responsible for developing COVID-19 vaccine finder tools, including two high-traffic websites and a multilingual call center that handled questions and helped people find vaccines. The COVID-19 sites attracted more than 184 million visitors.
The USDS played a major role in the federal government’s pandemic response, helping coordinate the delivery of 749 million free COVID-19 tests, saving frontline COVID-19 testers 400,000 working hours, and increasing in-stock rates of infant formula by 60% from a historic low. The agency’s work with the Social Security Administration is projected to save $285 million in infrastructure expenses over five years by moving to more efficient digital systems.
A broader training effort led by the USDS has reached more than 900 acquisition professionals across 50 agencies, teaching them how to procure and implement modern IT services more effectively. The Digital IT Acquisition Training Program, launched in 2016, had 400 graduates by the end of fiscal year 2020, helping more agencies get better technology contracts.
The USDS also influenced hiring practices across the federal government by advocating for a fairer, more open, and faster hiring process for technologists. This included updating job application platforms and making it easier for digital talent to move into government roles.
The Digital Corps and USDS have intersected in several ways. Both focus on recruiting technical talent, driving modernization, and improving digital services for the public. The Digital Corps feeds early-career talent into agencies, while USDS provides experienced technologists and supports large-scale transformation projects. Together, their collaboration helps accelerate the digital transformation of government services across agencies and service domains.
Broader Trends in Government Modernization
The launch and rapid growth of the United States Digital Corps is one part of a much larger trend in government technology modernization. Recent years have seen a proliferation of digital initiatives aimed at improving public services, expanding technology talent pipelines, and addressing strategic security priorities.
One of these is the broader National AI Talent Surge, named in President Biden’s 2023 Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. The Digital Corps was included in this push to bring more AI and data science professionals into the public sector, recognizing the need for advanced technology expertise to manage both opportunities and risks associated with artificial intelligence.
Federal government information technology spending remains substantial. In 2022, the U.S. government spent about $100 billion on IT, but only around $12 billion went to cloud computing systems. The majority of spending still went to maintaining legacy hardware and software, much of which lacks the security and flexibility of modern systems. This made modernization—through initiatives like the Digital Corps and USDS—a critical priority not only for service quality, but for cybersecurity and cost control as well.
At the same time, security priorities extend beyond technology modernization. The United States Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, remains a key actor in national defense and security cooperation across Central and South America and the Caribbean. SOUTHCOM oversees a region that spans 32 nations and 14 U.S. and European territories, with an area of responsibility covering 14.5 million square miles. The command manages 1,200 military and civilian personnel, with component commands for each military branch and several joint task forces operating in the region.
SOUTHCOM’s responsibilities include contingency planning, security cooperation, and defense of the Panama Canal. Component units like U.S. Army South, Air Forces Southern, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, U.S. Marine Corps Forces, South, and Special Operations Command South provide aviation, maritime, special operations, and humanitarian capabilities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Joint Task Force Bravo, based in Honduras, coordinates disaster relief and counter-drug operations, while Joint Interagency Task Force South, in Key West, Florida, leads integrated counter-drug and law enforcement missions across air and maritime domains.
The creation of digital talent pipelines—like those offered by the Digital Corps—aligns with broader government efforts to maintain a strategic edge in both technology and security. The emergence of new digital programs, alongside continuing military oversight in key regions, reflects a dual focus: ensuring government services are modern, secure, and accessible to the public, while also maintaining readiness and coordination in the face of complex, evolving threats.
In 2024, the Digital Corps’ third cohort of 70 fellows was selected from over 2,000 applications, reflecting the increasing demand and competition for technical roles in federal agencies. These fellows joined a growing community of technologists who are redefining how the U.S. government builds, delivers, and secures digital services that reach millions of Americans every day.