The recent job post ads by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) Innovation Lab for blockchain technology experts on development of “use case prototypes” last month reveals the watchdog body is quietly pushing for more blockchain experts in the public sector.

GAO is a branch of Congress which serves as the overall audit body for the entire US government as well as offering evaluation and investigative solutions to the US Congress.

GAO has advertised for two positions; ‘Interdisciplinary Assistant Director, Computer Scientist/Engineer’ as well as ‘Interdisciplinary Computer Engineer/Computer Scientist’ who will help in exploring emerging technologies blockchain included. According to the advert the two experts will join GAO’s Innovation Lab.

From the advert it is clear that GAO is spearheading the development of a new unit which will among other things,

“identify develop, test, and evaluate use case prototypes for emerging technologies including digital ledger (blockchain), machine learning systems, Internet of Things (IoT), and virtual and augmented reality technologies.”

Using the Innovation Lab, the watchdog is hopeful of coming up with viable solutions as well as approaches that can successfully and profoundly alter the way audit is conducted and also aid in investigations and evaluation works in the future.

The watchdog body has been laying down measures to fully embrace blockchain for its operations in the recent past. In January, GAO established the Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) Innovation Team which was the first fresh team to be established by GAO in the last twenty years.

In a brochure published in September last year, GAO explained that the massive adoption of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) has the capacity to fundamentally alter the conduct of the government as well as the business community. This indicated the watchdog body was ready to venture into the blockchain technology, Cointelegraph reports.

The brochure stated that the use of blockchain will help in enhancing transparency, reduce labor expenses as well as improve the quality of data. It also highlighted that DLT can be used in various important sectors such as supply chain, healthcare, logistics as well as news.

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