I wonder where they found budget for this.

San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee is launching an entrepreneur-in-residence program with help from the White House to try to bring Silicon Valley innovation to government.

“Government has been lacking because there hasn’t been a bridge between entrepreneurs and government,” says Rahul Mewawalla, a former entrepreneur who is heading the program. “We’re trying to be that bridge.”

Government purchases are a $142 billion market that is ripe for innovation, Mewawalla says.

The San Francisco program is a 12-week program for entrepreneurs to tackle problems in government, including healthcare and open government data transparency. The program is structured like a tech incubator program with workshops and meetings with different officials in government. Unlike other incubators the city does not take equity. It also does not pay the entrepreneurs anything. The program, which starts in mid October, is looking for projects that can scale across the country to other cities and states as well as the private sector. About three to five teams will be accepted into the program from a pool of applicants. The White House will be providing support for the companies as they expand, Mewawalla says.