Jennifer Pahlka

Activist, Blogger, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Connector, Entrepreneur, Idea generator, Parent, Policy maker, Public servant, Social entrepreneur, Startup, Technologist, World traveler, Writer/Editor

Imagine a government fit for the 21st century. Where services just work. Where outcomes are demonstrably better. Where costs are reduced. Where we serve those whose needs are the greatest. It would be the biggest source of societal good for a generation. At Code for America, we believe we can build it together. Jennifer Pahlka is the founder and executive director of Code for America. She recently served as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she architected and helped found the United States Digital Service. She serves on the Defense Innovation Board and the New America California Advisory Board. She is known for her TED talk, Coding a Better Government, and her Long Now talk on government innovation. Awards include Silicon Valley Forum's Visionary Awards, MIT’s Kevin Lynch Award, the Oxford Internet Institute’s Internet and Society Award, and the National Democratic Institute’s Democracy Award. She spent eight years at CMP Media, where she ran the Game Developers Conference, Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra.com, and the Independent Games Festival. Previously, she ran the Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 events for TechWeb, in conjunction with O’Reilly Media. She is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Oakland, California with her daughter, husband, and seven chickens.

Transforming government. Showing up as citizens. Making and makers. Making our safety net work for the most vulnerable in our society. Reaching across political and ideological divides.

The US spends about the same percent of GDP on the safety net as Norway, Sweden and Denmark, but our people are sleeping on the streets. We can fix this by making the half a trillion dollars government spends helping vulnerable people work as intended. It takes starting with user needs, not government needs, and rethinking how government works.

defense, Government, government assistance, innovation, safety net, Web 2.0, welfare