Aaron Snow, former co-founder of 18F and Executive Director of Technology Transformation Service at GSA now works for Canada Digital Services of the Canadian government, who built the COVID Alert Contact Tracing App
Aaron Snow is the co-founder and former Deputy Executive Director of 18F, a govtech startup that was created by Obama. A 2016 by the GSA's OIG found that 18F spent "more than half its time on outreach, branding, and other non-billable activities." It experienced a net loss of $31M between FY 2014 and 2016. Snow has also been involved in mismanagement and lack of oversight of his team from an IT security compliance standpoint, where this led to 18F circumventing the GSA IT assessment and authorization process.
A Redditor indicated that they worked on a government project where "18F was highly involved at one point. They seemed like a smoke and mirrors, and in many ways they were."
Snow joined Canada Digital Services (CDS), a govtech startup of the Canadian government in 2018. CDS created COVID Alertn, Canada's COVID Contact Tracing App. CDS worked with Shopify volunteers and Ontario Data Service for the work engagement and released it in July 2020.
Former 18F Executive Director Lena Trudeau (born Chalykoff and married to Marc Trudeau) also spent some time at CDS in 2017-2018 as a Senior Advisor. 18F co-founder Hillary Hartley now works for Ontario Data Service and is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Trudeau was formerly the Vice President of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). Today, John Koskinen sits on the Board of NAPA. Koskinen is the former IRS Commissioner which Obama had nominated. Koskinen utilized delay tactics for congressional investigations relating to the IRS targeting scandal… Isn't this concerning at all?
Snow remains a current board member of OpenGov Foundation in Washington.
So is this how the flies flee and spread across the world?
Sources:
https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/10/audit-18f-spends-more-half-its-time-outreach-branding-and-other-non-billable-activities/132594/ / https://archive.vn/wip/92IPS
https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/70s2lz/audit_18f_a_quasitech_gov_entity_created_by_obama/
https://ipolitics.ca/2018/03/09/canada-nabs-u-s-digital-services-co-founder-to-head-its-tech-fix-it-team/ / https://archive.vn/Hz8sN
https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20EVALUATION%20REPORT_Evaluation%20of%2018F%20IT%20Security%20Compliance_JEF17-002_February%2021%202017.pdf
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/people/2017/02/central-figure-18f-ig-report-leave-government/