The White House is courting technology workers to make watchdogs to the government

The White House plans to call tech giants, including Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft, and IBM, on Monday to urge employees to leave their big paychecks and office benefits behind carry out brief missions within the government.

The Trump Administration hopes that private companies will encourage employees to take time off to help modernize state and federal agencies, bringing a sensitivity of Silicon Valley to challenges such as improving veterans' health care and the fight against cybersecurity threats.

"The country benefits when patriotic citizens with technical skills choose to serve at the federal, regional or local level," said Christopher Liddell, assistant chief of staff in charge of policy coordination.

Attracting new talent in technology has always been difficult for the federal government, given the slow recruitment process, the delicate nature of background checks and security checks, and the fact that public services pay much less than companies like Google. But President Trump personally faces an additional challenge: a growing cultural and political divide between his White House and left-wing Silicon Valley, which has opposed many of Trump's policies.

Prior to their rally, however, White House officials emphasized that they were convinced that many technology workers were willing to "set aside politics" to work together on common goals. "This Monday's event is not just about our efforts, it's about our successor and successor afterwards," added a manager who requested anonymity to discuss the administration's thinking. "It's good for the country in the long run for technology professionals to have a career in the public service at some point."

For the federal government, where a surveillance agency was using floppy disks until 2016, only one watchdog was discovered, he was upset to call on Silicon Valley-style expertise. The Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan non-profit organization that studies government agencies, found in September that less than 3% of full-time federal IT professionals were under the age of 30.

"You can certainly have older people who are technologically sophisticated," said Max Stier, general manager of the group. "But in the realm of technology, the reality is that a lot of innovation and awareness of what's possible is for a younger population."

Under President Barack Obama, the White House has spent years trying to reverse this trend. The botched launch of Healthcare.gov led the administration to create two government organizations helping federal agencies to buy and operate technologies, called 18F and the US digital service. Trump preserved both, and then created the Office of American Innovation, a government initiative bringing together representatives of about 50 companies and some of their professional associations during the event held Monday.

In the past, technology companies such as Facebook and Google have allowed their employees to make short stays in the federal government. However, Google said it "was reviewing its leave policy to determine the best way to support civic responsibilities," said a spokeswoman.

IBM confirmed its presence at Monday's meeting, and a spokesman said the company had previously placed its workers in programs such as the Peace Corps. Amazon and Microsoft have not responded to requests for comments. (The founder of Amazon, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns the Washington Post.)

Creating such a pipeline, however, might not be easy. Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft are among the largest providers of US government. Their computers, software and cloud computing raise the risk of apparent conflicts of interest when workers help federal agencies dealing with their employers. To this end, White House officials have stated that they have safeguards in place to ensure that these workers do not touch the employer-related problems of their business.

An industry group representing tech giants such as Amazon and Google, which is expected to benefit from a federal government with a greater number of people sharing its sensitivity, congratulated the White House for His efforts.

"It's not yet the norm to have deep technical expertise in all agencies," said Dean Garfield, president of the Information Technology Industry Council.