Our country, the Philippines, is notoriously famous when it comes to how slow government transactions could take, the redundancy, plus employee’s sloth-like actions, your day couldn’t be more special. With people queuing up, hoping to finish what they came for; others didn’t even take lunch, heck even breakfast; while others came from distant towns/cities. These sufferings of the Filipino people seem to be ignored by the government, no actions whatsoever. But in this day and age, one field could take these sufferings away, Information Technology; or specifically, Software Development.
Now, how exactly can Software Development help hasten government transactions? I’ll summarize it for you lot, and make it as simple as possible.
Software Development, is (as Wikipedia said) the process of computer programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications and frameworks resulting in a software product.
In other words, the process of making software or applications (apps). The correct word here is “Software”, but since “Apps” is way popular, i’ll use this term here.
The app should be designed with user-friendliness in mind, well-built for the user (in this case, the employee), consistent and reduces redundancy. Through this, I believe, government services could be strengthened and enhanced dramatically. This could lead to:
Developing sophisticated apps for the government could automate a lot of work - computations, transactions, queueing, projections and more. But this does not mean we should automate all the workload, some work are better off with the old manual way.
Since Philippines now have the Department of Information Communications Technology, the government can setup a governing body to develop such apps.
Forming a single body to govern the development will result to unified applications in terms of - design, coding patterns, source code management and more. The Software Development Committee will be the development team for all apps required by government agencies. As of today, we are still using applications from third-party companies, or simply put, from bids. Which is for me, super silly and lazy - the govt can’t control how the code works, how it should look, how it should work, bug fixing, they just can’t control almost everything. Forming a body that solely develops apps for the government will help get rid of bugs real quick, focus on the design, oversee the flow of the app, control the source code, make changes, push updates, the govt is the boss here, which should be, in the first place.
The Committee should be divided by team for each government agency, which handles all development, fixes and support, communicate with the agency’s developers, work together, instruct and lead. Then, a team should be made to manage the source code and all code changes.
I’ll be short here but I have prepared a detailed document for you. Here are some projects the SDC should prioritize:
Transition to a Linux-based Operating System (OS). Transitioning to a much better OS could benefit us in a lot of ways: It’s free, as in speech, so no more spending on expensive Microsoft licenses; Secure, perhaps this article from PCWorld could prove it; Open Data Format, users will never worry about a file being obsolete; Support and Software Updates, the usual lifespan of a Linux-based OS is 5 years, and 5 years are sure long enough for a stable machine.
Open Sourcing. Apps developed for the government should be Open Sourced, to: Allow investigation to the source code - media can examine the code themselves; Encourage third-party developers to join the development; Make the source open to the public, all apps are developed using the people’s money anyway.
Application Program Interface (API). This acts as a bridge from one point to another. Imagine this: LTO wants to verify the police records of the applicant, LTO app looks up the records, then verifies, straight from the app itself.
Govt Projects Database. A database of govt projects open to the public. Designed like a Facebook Page, all information should be posted, detailed.
These are just a quick rundown on what could be done within the Software Development Committee. For the detailed version, view this doc here.
These plans can be achieved with enough support from the government, 8 years tops. Encourage young and bright developers to develop apps for the government. We want faster transactions, but telling the employees to work faster won’t be enough. We have to utilize everything, like computers. We are at the era where technology is just up for grabs, why not take it?