Rapid prototyping in the form of hackathons is great, but it's not a substitute for a finished product. It can often mislead you. Just because you can do something in a week doesn't mean that this thing is going to be the final product.
I would love to see groups within government doing hackathons on projects when it isn't a crisis. Let's decide what we need to build, as a country, and let's build it without it being a time of crisis. Let's set aside money for that kind of investment so that the product is there when we need it.
I think in the private sector, hackathons do a very good job of showing that small, nimble shops can often outpace large, well-heeled organizations that are great at filling RFPs. We need to diversify the suppliers of government technology, ideally not to involve third parties—