The White House is now accepting applications for the Presidential Innovation Fellows program or PIF, VentureBeat reported.

This will be the third round for the program rolled out two years ago that aims to capitalize on the startup expertise and innovative thinking of the tech industry to make the lives of Americans as well as that of the government operations better, the report said.

President Barack Obama said on January 21, "We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government..." In its website, the PIF said it aims to get the "principles, values and practices of the innovation economy into government through the most effective agents of change we know: our people." The program, where the competition is quite fierce, brings together various individuals from the technology world to work with the country's foremost civil servants so they can "tackle many of our Nation's biggest challenges and to achieve a profound and lasting social impact."

With each PIF round, the fellows are asked to focus on particular projects that find answers to a broader theme. For the latest round, the fellows will seek to address the following efforts: 1) Making Digital the Default: Building a 21^st Century Veterans Experience, 2) Data Innovation: Unleashing the Power of Data Resources to Improve Americans' Lives and 3) By the People, for the People: Experiments in Crowdsourcing Government.

The program, which will accept applications until April 7, is led by Code for America Founder Jen Pahlka. Code for America is a nonprofit organization that seeks to find solutions to difficulties faced by municipalities by bringing together professionals from the web industry and city governments, VentureBeat reported.

PIF is a collaboration between the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the White House and the US General Services Administration. According to the VentureBeat report, its two prior rounds were considered to be very successful.