US President Joe Biden Calls for Coders in Hidden Message on White House Website

"If you're reading this, we need your help building back better," the message said.

By Reuters | Updated: 21 January 2021 12:27 IST

US President Joe Biden Calls for Coders in Hidden Message on White House Website

Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the US on Wednesday, offering a message of unity and restoration

Highlights

Former President Barack Obama launched the service in 2014
Tech specialists join the Digital Service for typically one or two years
Biden also called for a return to civic decency in the inaugural address

The recently updated website for US President Joe Biden's White House carried an invitation for tech specialists savvy enough to find it.

Hidden in the HTML code on the White House website was an invitation to join the US Digital Service, a technology unit within the White House.

"If you're reading this, we need your help building back better," the message said.

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Former President Barack Obama launched the service in 2014 to recruit technologists to help revamp government services - for example by modernising Medicare's payment system or reforming hiring practices across government agencies.

Tech specialists join the Digital Service for typically one or two years.

Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States on Wednesday, offering a message of unity and restoration to a deeply divided country reeling from a battered economy and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 4,00,000 Americans.

Standing on the steps of the US Capitol two weeks after a mob of then-President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the building, Biden called for a return to civic decency in an inaugural address marking the end of Trump's tempestuous four-year term.

"To overcome these challenges, to restore the sou,l and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity," Biden, a Democrat, said after taking the oath of office.

"We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this – if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts."

The themes of Biden's 21-minute speech mirrored those he had put at the centre of his presidential campaign, when he portrayed himself as an empathetic alternative to the divisive Trump, a Republican.

Saying there was "no time to waste," Biden signed 15 executive actions shortly after entering the White House on Wednesday afternoon to set a new course and overturn some of Trump's most controversial policies.

The orders included mandating masks on federal property, halting the withdrawal from the World Health Organization, rejoining the Paris climate accord and ending a travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries.

Biden told reporters in the Oval Office that Trump had left him "a very generous letter," but he would not disclose its contents.

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