Deploying new technology projects in cities can be a slow, frustrating process for companies used to being agile and avoiding bureaucracy. But both government and private companies have parts to play in streamlining and improving how cities roll out new technologies. That was the message at the recent "Accelerating innovation in the government" panel at the Amazon Web Services Private Sector Summit in Washington, D.C.

The panel, made up of founders, managing partners and CEOs of companies that sell products to both the public and private sectors, spoke to an audience of other employees from companies that work in the city tech space as well as government officials. They agreed that there was an increased push for cities to innovate. "We aren't in the Sputnik era anymore," said Chris Nicholson, CEO of Skymind, an artificial intelligence company.

Nicholson pointed out that after major space breakthroughs in the 1960s, companies, not government, have been at the center of innovation. But the U.S. government, as the single largest customer for goods and services in the world, has a role it can play.

"They are the catalyst to test new technology," Nicholson said.

The Trump administration has made efforts to spur innovation and tech growth. It launched an initiative called the White House Office of American Innovation with a goal of "modernizing government services" and "creating transformational infrastructure projects." The president's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, will lead the initiative. Neither Kushner nor the business executives helping with the initiative have extensive government experience — but some tech industry players don't think that's a problem.

"DARPA isn’t the center of the universe anymore, NASA isn’t the center of the universe anymore," said Mark Sole, the CEO of Sipree, a financial technology company.

While government entities are buying plenty of technology, they are looking to the private sector for what type of services and products they can expect.

"The government, with its reduced budgets, can no longer pick proprietary solutions," Sole said.

But, since government can make decisions that are potentially influential for generations, Sole said, "the public sector has the ability to leapfrog the private sector."

Requests for proposals — or requests for pain?

All panelists said that requests for proposals (RFPs) were a pain point.

The way governments frame the RFP can be confusing, Meagan Metzger, founder of DCcode42 said. Government customers, instead of describing a problem they're trying to solve, describe a technology that they're looking for. That gap can be difficult to overcome.

"The most common thing we hear is we don’t know what [the governments] want," she said.

Nicholson pointed out there are many government agencies with RFPs that need help finding one of thousands of startups. "It’s a matching problem," he said.

Sole agreed the procurement process is too opaque, which can make the matching up problem even more difficult — and he told the audience, including many officials who are responsible for procurement, to "be as clear as you can" with RFPs. 

Sole polled the 100 or so audience members to see if they thought the current RFPs process worked well. Only one hand went up, an attendee who said he worked in procurement for 25 years with success. Sole politely disagreed that that was a common experience and said he’d like to see RFPs added to the "ashbin of history."

Sole added that an RFP wouldn't have been able to describe a certain 10-year-old tech product.

"We have sort of got a in-house policy that we no longer respond to RFPs," he said. "No RFP would have requisitioned the iPhone."