• Fast Company, Tuesday, September 7, 2010 9:09 PM

The U.S. Government's Chief Innovation Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled Challenge.gov, a sort of public works X Prize, at the Gov 2.0 conference Tuesday. And it was greeted not by the enthusiasm lavished on, say, Pepsi when it launched a similar branded effort, but a smirk. "Unveiling a crowdsourcing initiative at a summit created to demonstrate the most advanced marriages of technology and government? Yawn," wrote Fast Company's Austin Carr.

"Ask not what your government can do for originality online, because we haven't seen it yet," Carr quipped. Since when is it government's job to be the most "original" tech leader? What is wrong with harnessing the power of a proven idea? Cynical take downs of potentially fruitful ideas? Yawn.

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