I'm here to talk to you today about a story that we have all been conditioned to believe is not possible.
今天我要向各位讲述一个我们都习惯性认为不可能发生的故事。
It's a story about a living, breathing start-up flourishing in an unlikely environment: the United States government.
这是关于一个鲜活的初创团队在不可能的环境：即美国政府中，运筹帷幄的故事。
Now, this start-up is fundamentally beginning to disrupt the way government does business from the inside out.
现在这个初创团队正在由内而外地从根本上改变政府运作的方式。
But before I get there, let's start with the problem.
但在此之前，我们先看看存在的问题是什么。
For me, the problem begins with a number: 137.
对于我来说，这个问题开始于一个数字：137。
137 is the average number of days a veteran has to wait to have benefits processed by the VA. 137 days.
137是一个老兵需要等待退伍福利的平均天数。137天。
Now, in order to file that application in the first place,
仅仅是准备福利申请材料，
she has to navigate over 1,000 different websites and over 900 different call-in numbers, all owned and operated by the United States government.
她就需要浏览1000多个不同的网站以及900多个不同的电话号码，这些网站和号码都属于美国政府，并由其掌管。
Now, we live in times of incredible change.
我们现在生活在一个飞速变化的时代。
The private sector is constantly changing and improving itself all the time.
私人机构在不断地变化，不断地自我改进。
For that matter, it's removing every single inconvenience in my life that I could possibly think of.
事实上，他们改善了我生活中任何一点我可能想到的不方便的地方。
I could be sitting on my couch in my apartment,
我可以坐在公寓的沙发上，
and from my phone, I can order a warm, gluten-free meal that can arrive at my door in less than 10 minutes.
用电话订一份热腾腾的无麸质美食，让它在十分钟之内送达我的门口。
But meanwhile, a working mother who depends on food stamps to support her family
但同时一位依靠食品券来养家糊口的职场母亲，
has to complete an arduous, complicated application which she might not even be able to do online.
却需要完成一份复杂繁琐的申请表，甚至都不能网上提交。
And the inability of her to do that same work from her couch means that she might be having to take days or hours off of work that she can't spare.
她无法在沙发上做相同的事情，这意味着她需要从工作时间中抽出几小时甚至是几天时间，而这几乎不可能。
And this growing dichotomy between the beneficiaries of the tech revolution and those it's left behind is one of the greatest challenges of our time...
这个存在于科技革命的受益者，和那些无法受益的人之间日益加深的鸿沟，是我们这个时代所面临的最大的挑战之一。
Because government's failure to deliver digital services that work is disproportionately impacting the very people who need it most.
因为政府并没有很好地普及数字化服务，这严重影响了那些最需要这项服务的人们。
It's impacting the students trying to go to college, the single mothers trying to get health care, the veterans coming home from battle.
这影响了想要去念大学的学生，那些尽力去争取医疗保险的单身母亲，那些从战场回到家中的老兵。
They can't get what they need when they need it.
他们无法在急需之时获得帮助。
And for these Americans, government is more than just a presidential election every four years.
对于这些美国人来说，政府的概念不只是一场四年一次的总统选举。
Government is a lifeline that provides services they need and depend on and deserve.
政府是能够提供给他们服务的生命线，这些服务是他们所需的，依赖的，应得的。
Which is, quite frankly, why government needs to get its shit together and catch up. Just saying.
也就是，坦白讲，政府本就应该高效运作，而不能烂摊子遍地。这只是个人想法。
Now, this wasn't always a problem I was passionate about.
以前这并不是一个我非常关注的问题。
When I joined President Obama's campaign in 2008, we brought the tech industry's best practices into politics.
当我加入奥巴马总统2008年的选举运动之时，我们将科技产业最好的实践经验引入了政治活动中。
We earned more money, we engaged more volunteers and we earned more votes than any political campaign in history.
我们赚了更多的钱，招募了更多的志愿者，我们赢得了政治选举史上最多的选票。
We were a cutting-edge start-up that changed the game of politics forever.
我们是一个永久性改变了政治游戏的前沿初创团队。
So when the President asked a small group of us to bring that very same disruption directly into government,
所以当奥巴马总统让我们中的小部分人将同样彻底的变革带入政府，
I knew it wasn't going to be easy work, but I was eager and showed up ready to get to work.
我知道这绝非易事，但我仍然热情高涨，迫不及待要开始工作。
Now, on my first day in DC, my first day in government, I walked into the office and they handed me a laptop.
我第一天到华盛顿的时候，第一天在政府中任职，我走进办公室，他们给了我一台笔记本电脑。
And the laptop was running Windows 98.
里面的操作系统是Windows 98。
I mean, three entire presidential elections had come and gone since the government had updated the operating system on that computer. Three elections!
我是说，从政府更新这台电脑的系统以来已经过去了整整三届总统大选。三届！
Which is when we realized this problem was a whole lot bigger than we ever could have imagined.
这时我们意识到问题比我们想象中的还要麻烦。
Let me paint the picture for you.
我来给你们分析一下当前的形势。
The federal government is the largest institution in the world.
联邦政府是世界上最大的机构。
It spends over 86 billion dollars a year -- 86 billion -- on federal IT projects.
它每年在联邦IT项目上花费860亿美元--860亿。
For context: that is more than the entire venture capital industry spends annually -- on everything.
为了方便你们理解：这比所有风险资本行业整整一年的支出还要多。
Now, the problem here is that we the taxpayers are not getting what we pay for,
现在的问题是，纳税人没有得到我们付钱应得的服务，
because 94 percent of federal IT projects are over budget or behind schedule. 94 percent!
因为有94%的联邦IT项目都超出了预算或是逾期完成。94%！
For those of you keeping score, yes, the number 94 is very close to 100.
不用算了，没错，94已经很接近100了。
There's another problem: 40 percent of those never end up seeing the light of day.
还有一个问题：40%的项目永远没有完成过。
They are completely scrapped or abandoned.
它们被彻底废除或是抛弃了。
Now, this is a very existentially painful moment for any organization,
这对任何组织来说都是一个极其痛苦的时刻，
because it means as government continues to operate as it's programmed to do, failure is nearly inevitable.
因为这意味着如果政府继续按照计划去运作，失败是在所难免的。
And when the status quo is the riskiest option, that means there is simply no other choice than radical disruption.
如果当前面临的是最冒险的选择，这意味着除了彻底的改革，我们别无选择。
So, what do we do about it? How do we fix this?
那么，我们对此能做什么呢？该如何解决这个问题呢？
Well, the irony of all of this is that we actually don't have to look any further than our backyard,
然而，讽刺的是，我们仅仅需要借鉴自己本土的经验就够了，
because right here in America are the very ideas, the very people, who have swept our world into a radically different place than it was two decades ago.
因为美国恰恰是20年前给世界带来彻底变革的理念和民众的诞生之地。
So what would it look like if it was actually as easy to get student loans or veterans' benefits as it is to order cat food to my house?
那么如果申请学生贷款和老兵福利就像我从家里订购猫粮一样容易，那该会是怎样的一番景象？
What would it look like if there was an easy pathway for the very entrepreneurs and innovators
如果有一条便捷的途径，让那些曾为科技界带来变革的企业家和创新者
who have disrupted our tech sector to come and disrupt their government?
为政府带来变革，又会是怎样一种状况？
Well, my friends, here's where we get to talk about some of the exciting new formulas we've discovered for creating change in government.
亲爱的朋友们，现在是时候来讨论一下我们发现的、能为政府带来变革的新策略了。
Enter the United States Digital Service.
让我们进入美国数字服务局。
The United States Digital Service is a new network of start-ups, a team of teams, organizing themselves across government to create radical change.
美国数字服务局是一个新的初创团队网，一个为团队服务的团队，供政府中的团队们组织起来创造根本性的变革。
The mission of the United States Digital Service is to help government
美国数字服务局的宗旨是帮助政府，
deliver world-class digital services for students, immigrants, children, the elderly -- everybody -- at dramatically lower costs.
以极低的价格为学生、移民、儿童、老人--每个人--提供世界一流的数字化服务。
We are essentially trying to build a more awesome government, for the people, by the people, today.
实际上，我们正在尽力为当下的人们创立一个民享、民治的先进政府机构。
We don't care...Thank you. Who doesn't want a more awesome government, right?
我们不关心...谢谢。谁不想要一个更棒的政府呢？
We don't care about politics. We care about making government work better, because it's the only one we've got.
我们才不关心政治。我们在乎的是如何让政府工作起来更有效，因为我们只有这一个政府。
Now, you can think of our team -- well, it's pretty funny -- you can think of our team a little bit like the Peace Corps meets DARPA meets SEAL Team 6.
你可以这样想我们的团队--这很有意思--把我们的团队想成和平护卫队、美国国防部高级研究计划局和海豹六队的结合体。
We're like the Peace Corps for nerds, but instead of traveling to crazy, interesting, far-off places,
我们像是由“书呆子”组成的和平护卫队，但我们并不是到有趣刺激的远方去旅行，
you spend a lot of time indoors, behind computers, helping restore the fabric of our democracy.
而是花很多时间呆在室内，呆在电脑后面，帮着修复我们的民主结构。
Now, this team -- our playbook for the United States Digital Service is pretty simple.
我们的团队为美国电子服务系统编写的剧本很简单。
The first play is we recruit the very best talent our country has to offer, and recruit them for short tours of duty inside government.
第一步，我们招募这个国家最出色的人才，招募他们短时间为政府效力。
These are the very people who have helped build the products and companies that have made our tech sector amongst the most innovative in the world.
正是这些人建造的产品和公司，让我们国家的科技领域走在全世界创新的前沿。
Second, we pair these incredible people from the tech core with the dedicated civil servants already inside government on the ground creating change.
其次，我们把政府内尽职尽责、在一线创造改变的公仆，和科技领域核心的优秀人才配对。
Third, we strategically deploy them in a targeted formation at the most mission-critical, life-changing, important services that government offers.
第三，我们有策略地有效利用他们来开展政府提供的肩负重大使命、能够改变生活的重要服务。
And finally, we give them massive air cover,
最后，我们为他们提供
from the leadership inside the agencies all the way up to the President himself, to transform these services for the better.
下至机构领导层，上至总统的大规模“空中掩护”，来让这些服务变得更好。
Now, this team is beginning to disrupt how government does business from the inside out.
现在这个团队正在从里到外的改变政府运作的方式。
If you study classic patterns of disruption, one very common pattern is rather simple.
如果你研究了变革的经典模式，一种非常普通的模式是很简单的。
It's to take something that has become routine and standard in one industry and apply it to another where it's a radical departure from the status quo.
当把一个领域内已经成为惯例或者标准的东西应用到另一个领域，将会给这个领域带来飞跃。

Think about what Airbnb took that was normal from hospitality and revolutionized my apartment.
想象Airbnb从好客的常态中发展出的、给我的公寓带来革命性变化的创新。
The United States Digital Service is doing exactly that.
这也正是美国数字服务局正在做的事情。
We are taking what Silicon Valley and the private sector has learned through a ton of hard work
我们从硅谷和私人部门汲取辛苦积累的成功经验，
about how to build planetary-scale digital services that delight users at lower cost,
来以更低的价格为用户提供满意的、大规模的数字化服务，
and we're applying that to government, where it is a radical departure from the status quo.
我们把这应用于政府，对于现存的情况是一个巨大的飞跃。
Now, the good news is: it's starting to work.
好消息是，初步成效已经开始显现了。
We know this because we can already see the results from some of our early projects,
我们知道奏效了，是因为我们看到了
like the rescue effort of Healthcare.gov, when that went off the rails.
诸如我们早先对Healthcare.gov所出现的问题进行的改善。
Fixing Healthcare.gov was the first place that we ran this play,
解决Healthcare.gov 的问题是我们改变的第一步，
and today we are taking that same play and scaling it across a large number of government's most important citizen-facing services.
今天我们正在复制同样的经验，并大规模运用到由许多政府机构提供的最为重要的公民服务中去。
Now, if I can take a moment and brag about the team for a second -- it is the highest concentration of badasses I could have ever dreamed of.
现在让我花点时间赞扬一下我们这个团队--这个团队囊括了我能够想到的最棒的人。
We have top talent from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and the likes, all on staff today, all choosing to join their government.
我们有来自像谷歌、脸书、亚马逊、推特等公司的天才们加入，共同选择加入他们的政府。
And what's incredible is, everybody is as eager and kind as they are intelligent.
最棒的是，每个人不仅智慧超群，而且十分热情和善良。
And I might add, by the way, over half of us are women.
我还要顺便补充一句，有半数以上的人都是女性。
The best way to understand this strategy is actually to walk through a couple of examples of how it's working out in the wild.
最好的理解这个策略的方式，是通过一些案例来理解在实际中这个策略是怎么实施的。
I'm going to give you two examples quickly.
我会很快给出两个例子。
The first one is about immigration. This, my friends, is your typical immigration application.
第一个例子跟移民有关。亲爱的朋友们，这是一份典型的移民申请。
Yes, you guessed it -- it's almost entirely paper-based.
是的，你猜的没错--它几乎全是纸质的申请。
In the best case, the application takes about six to eight months to process.
即使是最顺利的情况下，整个申请过程也要耗费6到8个月。
It is physically shipped thousands of miles -- thousands of miles! -- between no less than six processing centers.
这份申请会在6个以上的处理中心之间辗转运输上千英里，上千英里！
Now, little story: about a decade ago, the government thought that if it brought this system online,
现在，我要讲个小故事：大概十年前，政府想到如果申请能够通过网络系统，
it could save taxpayer dollars and provide a better service, which was a great idea.
那会为纳税人省钱，并且提供更好的服务，这是一个很好的想法。
So, the typical government process began.
然后，一个典型的政府处理流程开始了。
Six years and 1.2 billion dollars later, no working product was delivered -- 1.2 billion with a "B."
在经过6年的时间、耗费了12亿美元之后，却没有什么实际的成果，12亿换来一个不尽如人意的结果。
Now at this point, the agency responsible, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, could have kept pouring money into the failing program.
在这个节骨眼上，负责此事的政府机构，美国公民及移民服务处，本可以继续往这个失败的项目里投钱。
Sadly, that's what often happens. That's the status quo today. But they didn't.
很遗憾，这种事儿经常发生。这就是现有的情况。但他们没有继续投钱。
The dedicated civil servants inside the agency decided to stand up and call for change.
政府内部的人员决定要站出来呼吁改变。
We deployed a small team of just six people,
我们启用了一个只有6个人的小团队，
and what many people don't know is that's the same size as the rescue effort of Healthcare.gov -- just six people.
很多人不知道的是，改变Healthcare.gov的团队也是只有6个人。
And that team jumped in, side-by-side,
那个团队加入了改变这个项目的政府机构，与他们并肩，
to support the agency in transitioning this project into more modern business practices, more modern development practices.
把这个项目变成了一个更现代化的商业和发展实践。
Now, in non-tech speak, what that basically means is taking big, multi-year projects and breaking them up into bite-sized chunks,
通俗点说，就是把需要很多年完成的大型项目分解成一个个小的环节，
so that way we can reduce the risk and actually start to see results every couple of weeks, instead of waiting in a black box for years.
这样我们能够减少风险，每隔几周就能看到效果，而不是在黑暗中摸索了这么多年。
So within less than three months of our team being on the ground, we were already able to push our first products to production.
在我们团队抵达第一线的不到三个月的时间里，我们已经能够让第一个产品上线了。
The first one, this is the form I-90. This is used to file for your replacement green card.
第一个产品是I-90表格。这个表格是用来递交更换绿卡的申请。
Now, for immigrant visa holders, a replacement green card is a big deal.
对于移民签证的持有者来说，更换绿卡是非常重要的事情。
Your green card is your proof of identification, it's your work authorization, it's the proof that you can be here in this country.
绿卡是你身份的证明，是你工作的授权，是你能够呆在这个国家的证明。
So waiting six months while the government processes the replacement is not cool.
所以等待政府6个月的处理时间太让人头疼了。
I'm excited to tell you that today, you can now, for the first time,
今天我激动地告诉你们，你们现在，第一次，
file for a replacement green card entirely online without anyone touching a piece of paper.
可以全部通过网上系统来申请绿卡更换，全程不需任何人接触一张纸。
It is faster, it is cheaper, and it's a better user experience for the applicant and the government employees alike.
这会更快、更便宜，对于申请人和政府雇员来说，这都是一个更好的用户体验。
Another one, quickly. Last fall, we just released a brand-new practice civics test.
我再举一个简短的例子。去年秋天，我们刚刚发布了一个全新的模拟公民考试系统。
So as part of becoming a US citizen, you have to pass a civics test.
要想成为一个美国公民，你必须得通过一个公民考试。
For anyone who has taken this test, it can be quite the stressful process.
对于已经参加过考试的人来说，这是一个压力山大的过程。
So our team released a very easy, simple-to-use tool in plain language to help people prepare,
所以我们团队发布了一个通俗易懂、便于操作的工具，来帮助人们准备考试，
to help ease their nerves, to help them feel more confident in taking the next step in pursuing their American dream.
帮助他们缓解紧张的情绪，帮助他们获得更多自信，来开始追求美国梦的下一步。
Because all of this work, all of this work on immigration, is about taking complicated processes and making them more human.
因为所有的移民工作是关乎简化复杂的过程，使之更加人性化。
The other day, one of the dedicated civil servants on the ground said something incredibly profound.
那天，一个工作在第一线的公务员，说了一句意味深长的话。
She said that she's never been this hopeful or optimistic about a project in her entire time in government.
她说她自从为政府效力以来，从来没有像现在这样充满希望。
And she's been doing this for 30 years. That is exactly the kind of hope and culture change we are trying to create.
她已经为政府效力了30年。这正是我们尽力去营造的希望和文化上的改变。
For my second example, I want to bring it back to veterans for a second,
我的第二个例子，想要再回到老兵的话题上来，
and what we are doing to build them a VA that is worthy of their service and their sacrifice.
回到我们正在为他们打造的退伍老兵事务部，对得起他们曾付出的服务和牺牲。
I'm proud to say that just a few months ago, we released a brand-new beta of a new website, Vets.gov.
我很骄傲地说，就在几个月前，我们发布了一个新网站，Vets.gov的全新测试版本。
Vets.gov is a simple, easy-to-use website that brings all of the online services a veteran needs into one place.
Vets.gov是一个操作简单的网站，它把老兵在网络上所需的所有服务集于一身。
One website, not thousands. The site is a work in progress, but it's significant progress,
所有的服务都在一家网站，而非几千家网站。这个网站正在逐步运行，但已经取得了很大的进展，
because it's designed with the users who matter most: the veterans themselves.
因为这个网站是为最需要它的老兵们设计的。
This might sound incredibly obvious, because it should be, but sadly, this isn't normal for government.
这可能听起来很显而易见，因为本该如此，但遗憾的是这并不是政府的常态。
Far too often, product decisions are made by committees of stakeholders who do their best to represent the interests of the user,
通常的情况是，产品决定是由利益相关者的委员会下达的，这些委员会尽力去代表用户的利益，
but they're not necessarily the users themselves.
但他们不一定是用户本身。
So our team at the VA went out, we looked at the data, we talked to veterans themselves and we started simple and small,
所以我们处理老兵事务的团队动身去研究数据，去跟老兵们交流，我们从简单的小规模问题开始，
with the two most important services that matter most to them: education benefits and disability benefits.
从两个对他们来说最重要的项目开始着手--教育福利和残疾福利。
I'm proud to say that they are live on the site today,
我很骄傲地告诉大家，这两项服务目前已经上线，
and as the team continues to streamline more services, they will be ported over here, and the old sites, shut down.
团队们也在致力于精简更多的服务，这些服务将会被移到Vets.gov上来，而旧网站将被关闭。
To me, this is what change looks like in 2016.
对我来说，这就是2016的新变化。
When you walk out of the Oval Office, the first time I was ever there, I noticed a quote the President had embroidered on the rug.
当你步入白宫的椭圆形办公室，我第一次走进那里的时候，我注意到总统绣在地毯上的一句名言。
It's the classic JFK quote. It says, "No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." It's true.
是经典的肯尼迪语录。“没有关乎人类命运的问题是超乎人类本身的”。千真万确。
We have the tools to solve these problems. We have the tools to come together as a society, as a country, and to fix this together.
我们现在有解决这些问题的工具。我们的工具可以让我们的社会、国家团结起来，共同解决这些问题。
Yes, it's hard. It's particularly hard when we have to fight, when we have to refuse to succumb to the belief that things won't change.
没错，这会很难。当我们拒绝向“一切不会改变”的信念屈服时尤其艰难。
But in my experience, it's often the hardest things that are the most worth doing, because if we don't do them, who will?
但从我的经验来看，最难的事情往往是最值得做的事情，因为如果我们不去做这些事，谁会来做呢？
This is on us, all of us, together, because government is not an abstract institution or a concept. Our government is us.
这是我们的责任，这是我们所有人共同的责任，因为政府不是一个虚无的机构或概念。我们的政府就是我们自己。
Today, it is no longer a question of if change is possible.
如今改变是否有可能发生已不再是个问题。
The question is not, "Can we?" The question is, "Will we?"
问题不是“我们能够改变吗？”，而是“我们会去改变吗？”
Will you? Thank you. Thank you.
你会吗？谢谢。谢谢。