full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jennifer Pahlka: Coding a better government

Unscramble the Blue Letters

If you know anything about government technology, you know that this isn't how it normally goes. Procuring software usually taeks a couple of years. We had a team that worked on a project in Boston last year that took three people about two and a half months. It was a way that parents could figure out which were the right plibuc shoclos for their kids. We were told afterward that if that had gone through nomral channels, it would have taken at least two years and it would have cost about two million dollars. And that's nothing. There is one project in the cnlifaroia court system right now that so far cost taxpayers two bililon dollars, and it doesn't work. And there are projects like this at every level of government.

Open Cloze

If you know anything about government technology, you know that this isn't how it normally goes. Procuring software usually _____ a couple of years. We had a team that worked on a project in Boston last year that took three people about two and a half months. It was a way that parents could figure out which were the right ______ _______ for their kids. We were told afterward that if that had gone through ______ channels, it would have taken at least two years and it would have cost about two million dollars. And that's nothing. There is one project in the __________ court system right now that so far cost taxpayers two _______ dollars, and it doesn't work. And there are projects like this at every level of government.

Solution

  1. schools
  2. normal
  3. billion
  4. public
  5. california
  6. takes

Original Text

If you know anything about government technology, you know that this isn't how it normally goes. Procuring software usually takes a couple of years. We had a team that worked on a project in Boston last year that took three people about two and a half months. It was a way that parents could figure out which were the right public schools for their kids. We were told afterward that if that had gone through normal channels, it would have taken at least two years and it would have cost about two million dollars. And that's nothing. There is one project in the California court system right now that so far cost taxpayers two billion dollars, and it doesn't work. And there are projects like this at every level of government.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
citizens connect 3
fire hydrant 2
fire hydrants 2
tsunami sirens 2
collective action 2
call center 2
government services 2
political leader 2

Important Words

  1. afterward
  2. billion
  3. boston
  4. california
  5. channels
  6. cost
  7. couple
  8. court
  9. dollars
  10. figure
  11. government
  12. kids
  13. level
  14. million
  15. months
  16. normal
  17. parents
  18. people
  19. procuring
  20. project
  21. projects
  22. public
  23. schools
  24. software
  25. system
  26. takes
  27. taxpayers
  28. team
  29. technology
  30. told
  31. work
  32. worked
  33. year
  34. years