Watch the West Wing Week here.

This week, The White House held an historic, first-ever Kids' State Dinner; hosted Americorps, School Improvement Grantees, and Presidential Innovation Fellows. The President held a news conference and spoke with regional reporters about the need for Congress to agree on a balanced deficit reduction plan; and the First Lady made a major veterans hiring announcement in Jacksonville, Florida.

I'm thrilled to announce that we are publishing the source code for We the People, the online petitions system that has been a popular way for the public to connect with the White House over the past year.

Since We the People went live, thousands of petitions have gathered millions of signatures from people across the country. As those petitions have come in, the White House has posted responses about an open internet & SOPA/PIPA, puppy mills, reducing student load debt, working to fix our broken immigration system, reaffirming the President's opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, and more.  

When President Obama talked about We the People at the Open Government Partnership last year, he promised to, "share that technology so any government in the world can enable its citizens to do the same." Now anybody, from other countries to the smallest organizations to civic hackers can take this code and put to their own use.

Today marks three months since we released the Digital Government Strategy (PDF/ HTML5) – as part of the President’s directive to build a 21st Century Government that delivers better services to the American people.

Executing on this vision of government cannot happen alone. To provide the highest value of services, we must rethink from step one how government builds and provides services for the American people. We must unlock rich government data, information and services so that everyone from citizen developers and private sector entrepreneurs, to our very own Federal agencies can help provide the American people with the access to these services “anywhere, anytime, on any device.”

Today agencies are making great strides towards putting a solid foundation for a 21st Century Digital Government in place.

For example, the Census Bureau recently released its first mobile app, called “America’s Economy,” and just today released an iOS version. The app mashes up Census data with economic statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics and provides the latest economic indicators that drive business hiring, sales, and production decisions throughout the nation in real time. Economists, planners, business owners, and the public can use the app to get a quick and easy snapshot of the health of the U.S. economy, look at trends, and receive notifications when indicators change. But as powerful as the app is, just as powerful is the way Census is releasing the underlying data through its first publicly available application programming interface (API).

The Census API, which pulls from the American Community Survey and the 2010 Census, has yielded an unprecedented level of interest from citizen developers. Over 800 external developers have already accessed the API since its release, and users have generated over 24 million data requests. And as an indication of how valuable and accessible this data is, it took only 24 hours for the first third-party app to be developed and we are excited to see the many more applications that will be developed using this data.

This is just one example of the power of unlocking rich government data sets and services to the public and is exactly what the Digital Government Strategy is trying to accomplish. But it is just the beginning.

With a few weeks of summer weather left, there is still plenty of time to explore the great outdoors. There are few better places to do that than in America’s national parks, wildlife refuges, waterways, and forests. A new and improved Recreation.gov website is the perfect tool to plan your family’s next adventure.

With improved navigation tools and more in-depth content, Recreation.gov showcases 90,000 federal sites and healthy outdoor spaces to consider.

The new website makes it easy to make reservations, see ready-made itineraries for destination cities, and search for activities on an interactive map.

“Tourism and outdoor recreation are powerful economic engines in communities across the country,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said. “With the redesign of Recreation.gov, we are making it easier for people to plan trips, find outdoor adventures, and explore activities at our public lands across the country.”

Some important new features include:

• Explore Trip Ideas: Explore Trip Ideas helps you discover points-of-interest on public lands when planning trips to popular destination cities like Atlanta, Miami, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and more.
• Go Lists: Go Lists highlight places to go, events, and activities at federal sites across the country with topics including “Day Hikes for Weekend Warriors” and “Civil War 150th Anniversary: Places and Events that Shaped Our Nation.”
• Discover Great American Adventures: Discover Great American Adventures offers more in-depth articles and destination spotlights, featuring a wide variety of experiences and adventures found only in America. Some destination spotlights include “Best Places to Star Gaze,” “Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming,” and many more.

Supporting President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, Recreation.gov encourages people to be active outdoors and offers suggestions on hiking, climbing, biking and more. Check out the new Recreation.gov website to learn more.

Watch a video about the new Recreation.gov here.

Excitement is building as we prepare for Thursday’s launch of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program. This new initiative is bringing in top innovators from outside government to work with top innovators inside government to create real and substantial changes that will in a very short time frame benefit the American people, save taxpayers money, and help create new jobs.

After we announced our plans to create the Presidential Innovation Fellows program at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City on May 23, nearly 700 of you applied for Fellowship spots, offering to drop everything you were doing and come serve your country.

On Thursday, August 23, we will introduce the inaugural Fellows at a White House launch event, which will be streamed live on WhiteHouse.gov/live beginning at 10am EDT. And you can follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #innovategov. Joining me at the event will be a number of champions of innovation in government, including Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jeff Zients, Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management John Berry, and U.S. Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel.

President Barack Obama holds a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Aug. 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

"Today, HHS announced that thanks to the health care law that we passed, nearly 5.4 million seniors with Medicare have saved over $4.1 billion on prescription drugs. That’s an average savings of more than $700 per person," he said. "This year alone, 18 million seniors with Medicare have taken advantage of new preventive care benefits like a mammogram or other cancer screening at no extra cost."

After being asked about the prospects for more action from lawmakers to help create jobs and grow the economy, the President reiterated his call to help millions of responsible homeowners save hundreds of dollars each month.

"We're going to be pushing Congress to see if they can pass a refinancing bill that puts $3,000 into the pockets of the average family who hasn’t yet refinanced their mortgage. That's a big deal," the President told reporters. "That $3,00 can be used to strengthen the equity in that person's home, which would raise home values. Alternatively, that's $3,000 in people's pockets that they can spend on a new computer for their kid going back to school, or new school clothes for their kids, and so that would strengthen the economy as well."

To learn more about the President's proposal, visit WhiteHouse.gov/refi.

At the podium, President Obama also answered questions about the uprising in Syria, the security of American servicemembers in Afghanistan, and the state of the 2012 political campaign.

Watch the President's full press conference here:

On August 17th, we held a Google+ Hangout to highlight the difference AmeriCorps, a national service opportunity that has logged more than 1 billion hours of service since 1994, is making in communities across the country.

The Hangout was moderated by White House Director of Digital Strategy (and AmeriCorps*VISTA alum) Macon Phillips and Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Wendy Spencer. They were joined by four people actively engaged in the AmeriCorps community. They talked about what made AmeriCorps such an impactful program, and took questions that came in from Twitter and WhiteHouse.gov about the work AmeriCorps does.

The Hangout was part of a day-long White House focus on AmeriCorps: 150 AmeriCorps alumni came to the White House for a day-long briefing, and later that afternoon 12 of them were honored as Champions of Change, a program to honor ordinary Americans doing great work in their communities.

Watch the conversation, below, and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @WhiteHouse for more opportunities to engage.

Participants:

• Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service
• Macon Phillips, White House Director of Digital Strategy
• Robert Fogarty, AmeriCorps*VISTA alum with New Orleans, co-founder of Evaucteer
• Quinn Gardner, AmeriCorps St. Louis alum and Joplin volunteer
• Rafael Gonzalez, Chief Service Officer for the City of Los Angeles
• Melissa Simmermaker, AmeriCorps*VISTA alum with Iowa Mentoring Partnership in Des Moines, IA

To learn more about AmeriCorps, visit AmeriCorps.gov or follow them on Twitter at @AmeriCorps.

Watch the West Wing Week here.

Here's a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

NASA Success: On Monday, President Obama congratulated NASA’s Curiosity Team on the success of their rover touching down on the surface of Mars, praising them on their ingenuity and urging them to continue the good work. "Through your dedicated efforts, ‘Curiosity’ stuck her landing and captured the attention and imagination of millions of people not just across our country, but people all around the world, including Times Square," he said. "And being able to get that whole landing sequence to work the way you did is a testimony to your team."

Read the full remarks here. 

Drought Relief: President Obama also toured McIntosh Family Farms in Missouri Valley, Iowa to see drought damage first-hand and offer relief to those being effected. The President announced that the Department of Agriculture will begin to buy up to $170 million worth of pork, chicken, lamb, and catfish. And the President is directing the Department of Defense -- which purchased more than 150,000 million pounds of beef and pork in the last year alone -- to encourage its vendors to accelerate meat purchases for the military and freeze it for future use.  

"Understand this won't solve the problem. We can't make it rain," the President said. "But this will help families like the McIntoshes in states across the country, including here in Iowa. And we're going to keep doing what we can to help because that's what we do. We are Americans. We take care of each other."

To learn more, the Department of Agriculture is collecting resources for farmers, ranchers, and small businesses wrestling with this crisis at USDA.gov/drought. More information still is available at WhiteHouse.gov/drought.

This week, the White House hosted PTA day and the annual Iftar dinner, the President addressed the drought and spoke with the Curiosity team, and the Administration began accepting applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That's August 10th to August 16th or, "Dream Day."

Watch the West Wing Week here.