Sep 14, 2023

Oakland, California, UNITED STATES OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LaunchDarkly , the platform that helps engineering teams build better software, celebrates the winners of this year’s 2023 Service to the Citizen Awards . The Service to the Citizen Awards recognize government officials and their industry partners who have exemplified dedication to improving the lives of employees and customers. As an industry partner to both agencies, LaunchDarkly is delighted to announce that Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) and Recreation.gov (R1S), along with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are each recognized with a 2023 Service to the Citizen Award for the transformation of their respective services. “At LaunchDarkly, our mission has always been to empower developers and organizations to rapidly, collaboratively, and safely transform their applications. Seeing both Booz Allen Hamilton and CMS harness our platform to drive such profound positive impacts for citizens is both a testament to their innovation and a validation of our vision,” said Sara Mazer, Federal CTO at LaunchDarkly. “We're deeply proud to be a part of their journey and celebrate their well-deserved recognition with the Service to the Citizen Awards.” The Booz Allen / Recreation.gov Team worked with an interagency coalition of 12 federal partners to reinvent Recreation.gov during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, the application took too long to load and it was difficult for users to find the information they needed for their various transactions. Using modern technologies, cloud-native microservices and DevSecOps best practices, the agency partners coalition led a team of contractors, software engineers, cloud architects, customer experience specialists, and other experts to rebuild Recreation.gov from the ground up in 15 months. With a dramatically improved user experience and processing functionality, Recreation.gov is now a one-stop shop for trip information, planning, and reservations on par with today’s modern e-commerce experiences. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is responsible for managing one of the most highly visited government websites in the U.S., Medicare.gov. However, it was difficult for users to find the information they needed, and applications within the site were too complex to use. The Web & Emerging Technologies Group at Centers for CMS modernized their DevOps processes in a way that allowed them to progressively roll out functionality and user experience enhancements without disrupting any active users on the website. Applications during peak periods, such as enrollment, underwent a staggered release for each application group, ensuring that functionality in production was as expected. With these technical achievements, CMS is able to reach the development velocity required to provide Medicare beneficiaries and Medicare.gov users with a continuously optimized user experience, without downtime or call center alerts. Both BAH and CMS will be recognized on September 15, 2023 at the Public Service Leadership Academy (PSLA) awards gala at The Mayflower in Washington, D.C. This event will publicly recognize over 300 champions of change across the federal, state, local and international governments in the digital services, information technology (IT) and customer experience communities. “Each year, we continue to see governments maturing in the way they design and deliver services to their employees and customers, from leveraging new ways of designing and developing services to using emerging technologies. The public and employees deserve a 21st century experience and it’s our hope that this program honors those unsung heroes who make it happen,” said Martha Dorris, the President of the Public Service Leadership Academy. Those interested in learning more about LaunchDarkly’s federal offering and reading more about how it helped with CMS and Booz Allen Hamilton/Rec.gov’s digital transformations can visit https://launchdarkly.com/government/ .