 So welcome to the coding it forward fellowship. We're thrilled to have you here My name is Alberto Rodriguez and I have the pleasure of working in the public interest technology team here and Here we work with partners all across the ecosystem we work with government agencies non-government Organizations universities a lot of universities Policymakers and other mission-driven organizations to develop public interest technology. You're gonna hear hear this concept a lot It's the title of our of our talk, but if I would want to for you guys to leave with something is on your own definition of This concept. What is public interest technology for you? But more importantly, I think you are here because you have shown the potential to become leaders Who can navigate the complexity of today's challenges with your view on what the internet and what technology really is for our future? We will in a few moments will have our panel discussion. Well, you were here You will hear from experience public interest technologist and they will tell you all about it But they will try to think about what public interest technology means to them how they got Where they are right now? how have they worked within public service and private service on public problems and How they faced some of the challenges that you will be facing in your career their stories will guide you and inspire you as you embark on your fellowship and You are and I can say because I've seen this These cohorts passed through both New America and other organizations. You are at the start of a really exciting Journey you will get to see public problems You will try to work on their solutions But honestly if all everything goes well, you will feel that you made a change even as small as maybe some code or maybe a memo but Believe me that has impact Welcome to the public interest technology ecosystem. It's an ecosystem that we're still building But you are a part of it now You are the public leaders. You are the public service leaders, but you are the public interest technology leaders of the future So we are so happy to have you here in New America. Welcome and let me put it out to Ariana Hi, everyone. My name is a little I am the deputy director of coding it forward Just going to share a little bit about coding it forward and say welcome to our newest cohort of 92 Civic digital fellows and civic innovation core fellows coding it forward was started by a group of college students actually in 2017 Who were really interested in using their tech skills in the social impact space? Before public interest technology was even a term that was being thrown around And they couldn't find any I think the story goes that they all they could find was a federal government internship That was unpaid installing Microsoft SharePoint on government computers, which was not exciting to them So we loosely started as a jobs board and then we launched our first-ever early career Technology fellowship in government and to date we have placed 500 fellows at all levels of government federal state and local folks work on projects across four areas of practice data design product management and software engineering Which is really exciting. We were actually the Inspiration for the White House's us digital core program, which is really awesome. It is a one-year early career technology fellowship So I encourage you to check out coding it forwards programs and the US digital core as Folks who are interested in this space But again big welcome to our newest newest cohort of coding it forward fellows As I've been said you are the next generation of public interest technology leaders, but today we are joined with present Public interest technology leaders, which I am super excited about so I'm going to turn it over to them to introduce themselves And then we'll kick off with a question about how you got here Okay, hey everyone good morning, I'm Cyrus Sethna and the communications director at novel public benefit corporation My name is Maya is Ronnie. I am at the US digital service Which is a technology unit that sits in the White House a couple blocks that way I am an engineer and I was most recently the director of engineering Hi everyone, my name is Angelica. Most people name is Angie I lead the federal portfolio for tech talent project But prior to this I was a leader in the state of california, which I'll tell you some stories about I want to stick with you Angie Would love to hear about an odd role or experience where you didn't think you'd end up in this space Or just quite frankly, how did you end up in this space? Like many of you At first I thought I was gonna go to law school Also thought about medical school Ended up actually studying history of public policy and really loved my anthropology classes And my oddest job is actually working at a dental office So I think what that really tells you is that you can learn from all the experiences that you've been through so far And really apply them into the context of public interest technology Maya, how did you end up here? How did I end up here? Um, well I walked here No, I um started off with a computer science background. Um, I studied computer science at stanford And I actually um Was a senior and was graduating and tried to apply to usds and it turns out usds Which is us digital service for short Um, doesn't hire career early career technologists. They hire mid to senior levels. Um, so they sent me an extremely kind rejection email um And I went into big tech. I worked at uh Facebook formerly known as facebook. Um, and I worked on the integrity teams there. So working on civic integrity um Counterterrorism work child safety work. Um, this was right around the 2016 and then Subsequent elections. Um, I then pivoted and working into privacy work over there Helping understand how could we bake privacy processes into the development cycle at facebook So that engineers didn't necessarily need to know all the privacy policies And all the privacy laws that our products were privy to But instead could focus on the engineering and know that they were building code responsibly um And I was a software engineer there, uh hands-on keyboard I moved into more of a tech leader tech lead role by the end And then I reapplied to usds. She said try let's try one more time And I moved into usds at the end of 2020 Um, I was an engineer there for a year and then moved into the director of engineering role at the beginning of 2022 And uh, I'm still at usds. I have moved back into engineering work Which I've been really excited about over the last week actually the transition happened And so I'm digging back in on our project with the department of justice Cool. I also applied twice to usds. Yeah, it's a random passage Would you mind explaining usds to our guests and what exactly yeah, absolutely No, it's okay. Um, the u.s digital service is like I mentioned It's a technology unit that sits in the white house It was born out of a crisis. Um, so for You might remember this that in back in 2014 President obama had passed the affordable care act and then part of that Health and human services hhs Was to stand back up healthcare.gov which was a website that all people all americans could access and enroll in health care And the day of the launch the website fabulously fell over and It was a crisis that there were no technologists in house that could help stand it back up and so a few technologists came in from the private sector And helped stand the website back up and the story goes that that's how usds was born That the government the federal government in particular Had found a key value in bringing Less mid to senior level technologists most of whom come from the private sector But not all to come into federal government for what we call a tour of service Um, and the idea is to bring better technology and design to federal services and programs So we were founded in 2014 and today Nine years later were about 220 Staff in total we've got about 55 engineers and data scientists. We've got around 50 product managers 50 designers We also bring in procurement experts and we partner with over a dozen federal agencies to help improve their government services Um, so that's everything from how many of you might have used covid tests.gov Where you log into the usps website and you were able to order free covid tests online and they were delivered to your doorstep. Hopefully That's a product that we worked with usps us postal service on or vaccines.gov when we Hopefully have we're all able to find a vaccine. Um, that was a website that was used to monitor inventory over the country so that you could sign up for a vaccine appointment Um, so those types of of federal services are the ones that we focus on and um and partner with the government agencies to help them build accessible and reliable and uh sustainable and scalable websites and and technology behind the services and programs that they might be providing Cyrus are you applied? I did apply. Uh, and I also got a rejection letter one time So I just takes two tries. Yeah Yeah, so my first couple of jobs, um, I guess growing so first of all growing up my mom's a software engineer And I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but I have the kind of parents that would give me extra homework to do Uh, and so my my extra homework were like they're always like coding projects, right? And so, you know, when I graduated from high school, I was like, I never want to do this again You forced me to do it. I want nothing to do with uh engineering or technology ever So, um, I'm going to go into public service. I was really excited about like, you know Community outreach and working with people directly first job. Uh, I did I was like a low level staffer in a state senator's office I did correspondence and some case work and things like that loved it Um, I joined the peace corps for similar reasons. I served in Guatemala doing a lot of like community outreach I did small business development work there. Um, loved it, right? But at every step of the way, um, there were technology components of that work Right, there was a constituent case management system. We had to use that, you know, looked it was like a Uh, like a black screen with a flashing cursor, right? It was not very user friendly Um, I I managed because of what my parents made me do for extra homework But most of my colleagues couldn't use it very well Um in the peace corps, we had to report a lot of data and statistics on on on the progress that we were making towards Major development goals in the country and it wasn't very easy to do, right? And so every step of the way in both of those experiences, there were there were technology Obstacles that were frustrating and you know, thanks to my mom I knew there was a way to do it better and that led me on a path. Um co-founded code for chicago after peace corps Um joined us. Yes moved here. Um helped the chief data officer at hhs launched their office I don't know if anyone's going to hhs Um, but yeah, I would love to would love to chat about that And now I'm at nava where we continue to work to make government services more accessible simple and Effective for all people Well, thank you all for sharing this story as Maya. Thank you for the definition of usds And as you can see I think Everyone takes a different path here I think the more that you talk to people in this space the more you find that not a single person's path into public Interest tech is the same Um, so we're excited for you to be joining the community and just know that You'll probably apply to programs and not get in reapply Um, and that you can really find yourself in this space in a lot of different capacities As you'll continue to discover this summer. So thank you for those stories I'd love to ask you what public interest tech is to you And What's the most impactful thing that you've been able to do in this space? I know someone wants to start Something I could I could come in up for you Um, I also need a do-over on my first answer because they answered fabulously Yes So Actually a little bit about my background So I did migrate to the united states actually on the day of september 11 With my parents and two younger brothers And I grew up in california And I was a recipient of a lot of public benefit services and My parents instilled in me resilience and hard work and Really just for an opportunity for for me and my brothers to have a chance for a better future And As I contemplated law school as I contemplated med school as I worked at a dental office I think one of Of the skill sets that I gained was really figuring out how to pivot And how to make things work and fix things and build collaborations and and being Being a learner And I think that's what public interest tech means to me Is figuring out how do you build collaborations across people that maybe you don't understand or don't understand you To solve really complicated problems that make our government and our public sector And just the world work And I saw that time and time again Because I actually started my path to public service through also a fellowship program I was an executive fellow with the city of california and I was placed at a government operations agency Which reports directly to the governor's office? And we worked we oversat technology procurement hiring policies retirement benefits taxes All sorts of operational Functions that make government work And so through that I got a lot of exposure to Literally how you govern from how you hire to how you recruit to How you contract complicated problems out to the private sector and hope that they fix them And then you realize that you need to build that capacity Inside and something that worked for me again time and time again Is reaching across the aisle and really understanding the public servants that I was working with And the programs that they were overseeing to Figure out how we could work on it together And I think that's something that I want to instill in you here is that and we'll have a question around that later You are embarking on a journey that may not always be easy And that's okay Because you're joining a sector and a community that is now 10 years old And it's growing in fact, some may argue that it's older than 10 years old And it's probably true But a lot of it did start from healthcare.gov and usds and all of these other programs and communities That have been shaping over the past 10 years so don't Take advantage of like take advantage of it like don't don't discount the fact that It's it's not just you like you are parked now literally as alberta said earlier Welcome to this space. This is now a community And actually new america did define it's now in academic studies y'all like they're studying this work, right? They're teaching it at schools And new america and a few other partners defined public interest stack in wikipedia. So that's how you know we're real Um In any case so yes, I I think A lot to answer the second question I applied a lot of that resilience and collaboration and and partnership through the work At stator california. So one of my last projects was actually supporting the covet 19 response So while you all got the covet test at the federal level, I was actually the product owner for covet 19.ca.gov I was in charge of a digital team That had to figure out how to help 40 million californians adapt to A new world that you all literally experienced as well um, and so I was literally on the phone with the governor's office as the governor was at the podium and we're about to tell the californians So we're shutting down And I had my team waiting on me to like waiting for us to figure out what we're gonna put on on the website Like I don't know what we're gonna tell the world like we're just gonna wait for him to say it and then we'll wing it So that's that's the type of agility and adaptively adaptivity that I think Made me a good product person was really being able to understand Being able to see the policy intent Being able to build collaborations with the public servants that were tasked and implement implementing those programs and then Making sure that I was empowering my team to develop solutions that we knew could get to that outcome um, and with that time and time again for two years from Literally, I was doing the github push to like reporting the death toll on the weekends I was the one like it was doing the github pull requests Then they asked us to translate the website to seven different languages like At some point we had seven different websites And then we had to figure out how to merge it into one and the world will never know And that's okay Because it's it's not for them to know and I think that's how you know public interest act works is when They don't know like you don't have the public failures of of healthcare.gov and if you do that's okay Because actually part of the work is to prevent those failures, right? And so this is where You all come in You're not part of that broader community The public interest act community That will be able to solve and help Fix things and save the world and like all like the rah-rah things that we're all gonna be telling you You're gonna be here in time and time again because this work is hard and You're now here. So you're gonna help us make it better Incredible and huge impact as a Californian. I think I did not know Angie When that was happening and then I got to meet Angie in her new role and it was like you're the person that did that So cool, and you'll have a lot of those moments in this space where you meet people who worked on things that you like You don't you know, you know the faces behind behind the screen behind the github pushes. So Really cool. And thank you team as a californian My I would love to hear from you. What public interest act means to you And if you could share something that you feel is really impactful that you've been able to work on. Yeah So as I mentioned, I'm an engineer, which means that I break Phrases down like systems so public interest technology technology in my mind that serves the public interest Politics aside, I think that this country has entrusted A lot of public services and public programs in the government. Um, that's just written into the law of this land And to me that means going to The source of where these programs are being built and designed and implemented And I think that the broader public interest ecosystem nonprofits Uh private sector contractors think tanks all of academics all of these entities are critical in the ecosystem um For me personally It's a personal choice in that I've decided to enter federal government Because that is where I personally want to have the impact right now I think another lens that's helpful to look through is like There are a lot of different roles now within public interest technology Um, and I can just speak for myself in the last Two and a half years. I've been both an individual contributor and I see and I've also been a manager a supervisor Um, and I think that in any of these entities It's also important to look at what are the what's the kind of role that you want to assume here You know right now your fellowships have kind of defined the role that you have But I think as you are Interacting with the different folks in the offices and the communities that you're working with Take a look at the different types of roles that you can also assume. Um, I'm sorry. I'm not answering your question But I promise you well all of that's to say, um When I first started at usds. I was working on At the department of agriculture On two Nutrition safety net programs one of them is called snap formerly known as food stamps The other one one is called wick women infant and children and both of these programs are um highly critical in our social safety net and they're also extremely difficult to enroll in There's a lot of barriers to entry There's a lot of churn and fall out of the program because there's a lot of requirements around recertification And so as an engineer, I was able to work closely with the partners at the department of agriculture But also at the state and local level the community level to better understand. What are the pain points in enrollment? And provide recommendations on how we can remove some of them and actually implement some of those Um, and I think that my work as an engineer there I felt extremely proud of and impactful because I could dig into these extremely ugly case management systems and help case workers more quickly and more seamlessly enroll people in these Programs that they critically needed um And also help inform the tweaks that we should make to the application to make it more plain language and easier to read And not asking people the same question over and over again as they're enrolling in different benefits Um to answer your question of like what where I felt I might have had the most impact I think when you depends on how you define impact But another way of looking at it in my mind is also the role that I assumed as the director of engineering Um, there's multiplicative impact. That's hot there, right? My role was to support all of our engineers and data scientists at us Who I mentioned are across over a dozen federal agencies something like 25 different projects And the role in supporting your own people and supporting an organization That is then going and doing the work out in the fields Is arguably more impactful It's just a matter of the kind of role you want to assume and I see benefits to both and I think that's something that Each of us to decide is what is the role that you want to have within the civic tech community or the public interest technology Uh community both in terms of the kind of organization you want to land in and then also the kind of role that you'd want to assume For sure Great answers You know, I think alberto said it in his opening, right? But don't let anyone tell you what this is or isn't not even wikipedia. Sorry, right? but I used to be one of those people that was like public, you know Virtual reality dance lessons like that's not that's not civic tech. That's not public interest tech But it is right what maybe you're bringing dance lessons to somebody that otherwise wouldn't have been able to access them You're putting legs on the avatars in the metaverse, right? Like maybe you're giving mobility to people that never experienced mobility in that way, right? So I used to be that kind of person that was like no that doesn't count, right? But but it's that's not the way to think about it, right anything that serves a mission and has an impact That's meaningful to you or to you know a broader population or even a subset of the population of people I think is public interest tech so You can find it um in terms of impact things that think that i've worked on that i'm really proud of Storytelling in our space isn't isn't something that's done a lot. We're starting to do it more We have beautiful beautiful spaces like the one that we're in right now um, but I I want This demand for public services to work in the way that we know that they can work to be universal People still think about you know going to the dmv is like a horrible experience, right? And it doesn't have to be like that It should just be like a it's probably never going to be disney world But it doesn't it doesn't have to be I worked on that too, right? Yes. Yeah, it's possible It's totally possible. California, I gotta say I ever used my driver's license and it was easy Yeah, right before COVID that was one of my projects was I was on the strike team That helped fix the california dmv and actually how do we not make those investments? I'm not sure how they would have survived the the pandemic. That's a story for another day Yeah, but yeah, it's storytelling critical like how do we do it? Did you even know that like? Totally no totally. Yeah, don't worry. It just is a compensation. Yeah Yeah, so I would say like a lot of the media relations press work that I've had a chance to participate in is impactful to me And I want like I want my grandma to demand things to work in this way Yes, for sure So I was doing the good work of getting the stories out there. It's important and really critical Um, because then you find out things like the things that Angie and I have worked about it worked on and uh get to share that with people and I think COVID uh Dot gov was a really great example of that like it was the first time that my family was like Oh, this is what you do. Like yeah, like I know the people who built this and made it work So that you could get COVID tests and then people were like, oh like yeah It's because of people like sire is that it'll make it easier to explain to our family. Yeah What we're doing. Yeah, what do you do? Um, but also to double down on that and the emphasis in storytelling I think that's part of what helps to find public interest back to Is learning from each other like lessons learned and how do you learn that is being able to like You have to share what you're working on What worked but didn't work. Why didn't it work? What are we trying? Why did we try it? What are our assumptions? Um, like right before COVID-19 dot sierra gov I let the the alpha team Where we were modeling essentially in a new approach to redesigning public services um And we did this by measuring accessibility And performance and readability and worked with all of our government partners of each Prototype that we were working on to show them the user feedback I sent my engineers and everyone out to talk to like people To learn about how they were experiencing those services at that time And then we would do weekly done-doings. So we would showcase like this is what we're working on this week This is what we're going to work on next week. This is what we learned Um, and it's because also like 18f is another entity that you'll get like become familiar with Um usds all of these other entities at the federal level, but now some more at the states um They're all collectively learning from how they're working and by being able to share those lessons learned and communicating them Um, I think it makes the space better. So thank you cyrus for what you do Thank you for joining us one A little bit of a pivot here, and I'd love to have my uh, perhaps take this one A lot of early career individuals, I think are trying to figure out what what they're going to do And where they're going to go and is it the private sector or public sector? Where are you going to end up and I'd love to hear from you What does design and delivery mean between the private and the public sector? Yeah, um So I would actually argue that there isn't that much of a difference or said another way There shouldn't be that much of a difference between delivery and design between the private sector and public sector um And I'll explain I think that the private sector at times and now I might be getting a little spicy here Um I think there's the idea that the private sector moves faster and things get built quicker and and there's um You know much more human-centered design and quick testing and iterating and prototyping um and also I think all of those uh, the the idea to to Pilot early and iterate on things quickly and bring center products on humans Those are all Things that the public sector should be doing On the flip side, I think that the public sector and government tech often gets the Reputation of moving very slowly and there's so many Laws and regulations and standards that you need to uphold and and things take so long to build and there's too much bureaucracy Um And also I told you a little bit about my work at facebook I think that the private sector should be More responsible in how they build technology. I think that we are seeing that extremely clearly right now I think with L or large language models and the uptick of uh powerful tools like chat gbt in the past six months We've really started grappling the question of what responsible technology and deployment looks like Um, and so I do think that both could learn from one another and there are facets in both that are critical for all um That means that we're building things that are accessible for all types of abilities and languages and bandwidths of Internet that people are using to maybe access services or products means that we're building things that are Human centered and user centered and we're speaking to people actual real people Before we build a product to hear their stories and hear what their pain points are and hear how they're um How they're hoping to interface with some sort of system or product like the one we're about to build um And so yeah, I guess like in my mind There are just overarching standards that we should be upholding as technologists wherever we go be that private sector or public sector um, and I hope that there is a bit more uh Responsibility that is instilled in the private sector and also I think there's Uh, the public sector also is ripe for bringing more potentially forward thinking and you know breaking things Rather than working on one large wide sweeping modernization project Is it possible to break it down into smaller chunks and pieces and start with the pilot and iterate and build as we go? Um, so yeah, that's kind of how I think about it. The other thing I'll mention Um As you're thinking about if you want to go into private sector or public sector or nonprofit or anything in between um know that like This is a You are just a beginning to embark on a journey that is likely going to take a lot of twists and turns and pivots And the decision that you make at the end of this summer or in whenever your upcoming decision point or graduation is um Can be the decision for the next One two three four five years It doesn't need to be that you're set on this one direction for the rest of your life In fact, as you've heard most of us have moved between different sectors And I think you learn and develop skills that are critical and transferable to the next sector that you might move into Or the next role you might move into Um, and so as much as you can make the decision for what makes that makes sense for this next chapter And try not to get too bogged down on if you're going in the single one track direction that you think you want to go Because I promise you there will be pivots and turns in between so Um, yeah, there's a there's a there's no wrong first step is what I'll say sure Yeah on the subject of paths and journeys and where you end up and how you're going there Cyrus, what is one thing? That you've learned along the way that you wish someone would have told you earlier in your journey in public interest tech So that's one of them right like that, you don't have to make your life choice right away that one chance that that's not a thing But I think something else and This is something like take it or leave it right because not everyone in here is exactly like me no one is But I'm not the most patient person in the whole world When I see a problem, I want to fix it. I want to come up with solutions for it I want to see how I can apply my skill set To that problem, right But working in government working in public interest work in general It's it's very consensus driven right you there's there's more people than just you not not only the millions of constituents But also the people that you work with right and so I think earlier on if I would have learned to be a little bit more empathetic A little bit better of a listener Uh and taken a little bit more time to zoom out and see the big picture I think that I would have avoided some frustrations and paper cuts earlier on Does that answer your question? Yeah, Angie, what about you? Yeah, um Again, there's a lot of recovering attorneys or people that Good school, but this is not going to be linear um I think part of the definition of this word too is Multidisciplinary like you have to rely on Different skill sets whether it be like the engineers the product folks, etc. Like within the delivery team But also in the context of government It's also multidisciplinary like you have your attorneys you have people that are managing the legislation and policy You have like the executive the administrator the the communicator like so Lean in on that Learn from all of those different skill sets and figure out where you plug in and just be open-minded again It's it's not going to it's not You're not going to get it right every time But you'll have more of an impact if you are practice patients If you ask for help and if you lean into this community that that you're now part of For sure We often hear how hard the work is and that's come up a bit here And I'm sure as you embark on the next 10 weeks of the work that you'll be doing you'll encounter difficult things Um, would love to ask our panelists in their opinion What the most challenging parts are of the work that you're doing and what strategies you've used to to navigate them? Maya if you want to kick us off. Yeah, um So I actually would argue that the technology here is not hard What's hard is not building the actual thing that actually is the easy part What's hard is bringing All of the people along for the Like the buy-in that you need to get from stakeholders and the If you're working in an agency that's consensus-driven decision-making Wow is consensus hard to build and drive forward and getting people to all agree and get their bosses to agree and get the their reports to agree I think that the The hardest part for me has been and this is going back actually to like the private sector versus public sector Um It is hard to measure impact in government. It's really really hard I think that I was very used to working in a sector where we had in our office spaces dashboards surrounding all of our desks with Measurements of the monthly active users for the products and the number of page views and we could grow them or watch them grow over time or dip over time And I could push a change or I could push code to production And add some sort of logging metric and all or logger and be able to see that grow over time And I could go to bed each night and point to a number and say like hey, I helped do that today um That's near impossible in government. That's not to say that we shouldn't be pushing for that I think it is absolutely like logging in metrics and doing so responsibly and implementing deletion frameworks is all important um But it's extremely hard to measure impact over time And so for me personally it's been and this is going back to the previous question of like what I wish I had known It's that success is going to look very different Based on what your background is but likely it's going to be very different than anything you've done before um, and so I think having Having your doing the mental exercises and doing the work yourself in your personal time to Be able to look back on the last week look back on the last month for yourselves look back on the next 10 weeks um and be able to point to see the impact that you had is something that was um It's continues to be difficult for me into this day But I think it is important to Remember that this is all a long long long long game. Um, I think I read somewhere that like this was a The practical guided civic technology written by said harrell if you haven't read it. It's a quick maybe 100 page book Um, and she does a great job of diving into the different Like civic technology one on one basically so highly recommend you read it But in that she argues that we're about to civic technology is about to be it's going to be around a 50 year Long game and if you think about it, we're maybe just under 10 years in Um, and so the type of impact that you're going to see is likely not something that you're going to Sorry, the type of impact you're going to have is likely not something you'll be able to see this summer. Um, and so being able to Show up every single day at work and end each week pointing to something or knowing that you had done something that week to land impact um I think is is extremely hard, but it is important in order to Stay around for the long game and and embark on the marathon that this is about to be for sure No, I thank you for that reminder. I think it's important I think our alums as they go through the program the thing that they run up against is always like What's the 10 the product's not going to be shipped by the end of the 10 weeks like I didn't do anything I didn't accomplish anything And I think the thing that we always try to communicate is the impact is it's a long it's a long term impact And you might not immediately see when the 10 weeks are done where your project went or where it's headed But you'll see it eventually and it's usually I think during our welcome ceremony yesterday One of our speakers shared it's about the baton handoff like that is the most critical piece of the 10 weeks is like That's a long game. Um, and I think that's really important cyrus anything to to add. Yeah. Yeah so, um When I was in the peace corps, right, uh I joined with this like expectation that I was gonna, you know single-handedly lone protagonist Changed the country that I was serving and it was going to be a developed like totally different place for the top And that I left right and that was not the case Believe it or not, right? And so I think like applying that thinking To to this space to the fellowship even right There's a limited amount of time But the things that you do are going to plant seeds that will grow into trees Right, like we're not going to sprout the forest up by the end of the summer But the things that you do the people that you meet the ways of working and thinking that you already have And know how to do are new for a lot of the the the folks that you're going to interact with right and Just presenting those ideas and that way of thinking and that freshness is is immensely valuable For sure We're going to open it up for questions in a few minutes So I have just a last last couple of questions Angie I'd love to ask you this one because we kind of touched on the work that you got to do in California the fellowship obviously a very limited amount of time just 10 weeks How do you balance uh quick wins and your longer? Uh term theory of change In the time that you have I would think about what is one Personal quick win of something you actually want to learn Not something you want to deliver But something you want to learn I think that will help define a bit better the scope of what success means to you Because again, this is a long term thing Um to go back to the story of like it takes time when I entered my fellowship in california I thought I was going to somehow convince the governor brown to do an executive order and open data We then release actually a policy on open data into like 2018 or something like that Um That doesn't mean we weren't working on it like there was many more things that happened in between that Um, but point is like it does take time and that doesn't mean that you don't have any control You have control over what you can learn You have control over What you can contribute you have control over the questions that you can ask that could prompt the stakeholders That you're working with to think about things differently And so don't don't lose grasp of grasp of that I don't know if I answered your question. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, Maya. What about you? How do you balance those those quick wins with the long term theory of change? Um, I'll let me answer this on behalf of like how I think about the work at us. Yes Maybe not me personally, but um, I mean, I think both are critical and both go hand in hand We always say that we when we start with work with an agency Um, we're usually brought in for like a distinct Problem or a distinct product i.e. This website fell over and we need help standing it back up Or there's a new website we need to launch and we want to make sure it doesn't fall over um and I think that As a technologist like I can go in and write some code and and stand something back up Um and that will have impact, but I think in order to have the most impact what you're ideally doing is You're working alongside an agency partner and and teaching them along the way, right? It's less about fishing and more about teaching folks to fish um, and so I think You can teach by doing and work on those quicker wins while also Implementing longer term change i.e. helping train up agency folks to help Uh, own these products long term or help them hire in technical talent Um, and I think doing both in parallel and having them as kind of like the checks and balances is critical in in Landing the kind of impact we want to have long term um But like I mentioned it's something that I struggled with a lot to this day I uh, I will often for my own personal sake just like write at the end of each week um, I think it's hard to You know If I look back at what I've done in the last six months, it's hard to remember all that shit, right? So like if you can end each week, especially if you have a 10 week You defined set of time Keep yourself accountable and write down what you've done that week and and what your goals are for the next week. Um I think that's helpful. That's also the type a person that I am so work in the the working style that works best for you But it again, it does take additional work than just showing up every single day and and um, I that extra Thought exercise I think can be helpful in in making this feel like um An impactful and fulfilling summer It was definitely final question here for our resident storyteller cyrus Um, what would you say to folks who are interested in staying in public interest tech after this fellowship? Uh do it Yeah, do it. I think I think I met some new friends in the hallway right before right incredible And I learned that everybody here has to pick you pick three agencies, right? You're like your top three preferences and there's a reason whatever they were There's a reason why you picked those places So think about like how does the mission of those organizations aligned with your personal values? And there's your there's your impact. There's your why should you stick around, right? There's there's not to say that the places in the private sector don't exist in that way But public the public interest space is a unique way to connect your personal values What's important to you and the world that you want to see come about? Uh, this is a way to like bring that to to fruition to birth into reality So stick around if you're interested my angi anything to quickly add on top of that So in my current role, I actually helped find the next CIO CTO CDO like executive for federal agencies So if you're curious to learn about what that path looks like Reach out You're the future I mean it you're in it for the next 10 years So let's talk about how we make it happen Of everyone that's spoken never take a talk to me my anything to add I mean, I think I already said it earlier figure out both the type of organization You might want to work for and also the role that you might want to play and also know that like Again, that's your decision right now and it's okay to change and Change the type of organization you want to work for a change the role you want to work for I honestly think the most learning That I ever had was working jobs that I hated. Uh, so If you are not enjoying a certain type of work that you're doing that's awesome Because now you know that that might not be the best fit for you Um, so it's okay. It's uh, this is just the journey of of life and professions that you're about to embark on or you've already been embarking on and Try to take the pressure off is what I'll say Yeah, that's the benefit of the fellowship program like you get to use the fellow card Take advantage of it. You're for a good time not a long time All right, well, we're gonna open it up for questions If you have a question to ask, please raise your hand. We'll get you a mic And if you are joining us online, please also submit questions and we're excited to answer them Hi everybody, my name is Asia. I am going to be working with the bureau of justice statistics this summer Maya briefly spoke about how the private sector could be more responsible But you know with data we all could be more responsible when we're thinking about ethics So I guess my question for you all would be How do you handle ethical concerns or questions that might come up during the project with your team? And how should Not say that we will have to deal with this but but as fellows if we ever should come across that How should we handle that or what would you suggest we do? So i'm going to put my fed hat on for a second and say that there are definitely ethics lawyers at You'll be at the bureau of justice statistics, which is at the department of justice for for those that aren't familiar There are definitely ethics lawyers that will uh, you'll you'll want to chat with um lawyers are Scary, uh, don't get me wrong, but they're not that scary. They're actually uh, no to we need them We need them like there they are critical parts of of getting stuff done here, right? Yeah um I do think that like there are absolutely ethics laws that you will be tied to Legally, um within the department or within all of the governments that you're going to be working with um, but I think there's also more of the like grayer area of where at the end of the day policy often uh Trails behind technology, right? Um, and I think those are critical conversations that need to be had with Your co-workers and colleagues in your project teams Um And it is I think we are all stewards or should be stewards of risk multiple technology and and ethical technology and ethical implementation Um, and those are our tough conversations that you'd want to have with with your team and also Make sure you're consulting with the lawyers because Otherwise we could get ourselves in a in a sticky situation for sure. Yeah, I think To to that to that I would not expect to solve it in 10 weeks that you're it I would also think about Important thing is to raise the question and state why it could be a problem and write it down So there's a record of it um, and then also As you get to understand your stakeholders and your environment figure out who Who do you escalate to? Who's the decision maker if is it the attorney? Is it like someone else that oversees the program like who is the person that you escalate this to? It's their responsibility To figure out what to take up from there, but like your responsibility if you see it Raise it And a good lawyer will help you make changes so you are legal and doing things the right way But you can also still do your user research or still do what you want to do, right? So like lawyers should help you get to where you want to be as opposed to Keep you from going there. Hi, my name is Ryan. I'm working in the city of boston government this summer So my question is in this town Things can very quickly and easily be politicized and I was wondering especially in your work And if you have examples or stories like how do you navigate that potential for politicization in public interest technology when technology Can be inherently political but also should be non-partisan and help out for you. Um, can I go first? Yeah, so so in this in communications. We think about this all the time, right? And it's a great question. So Um, I when I was at us. Yes, I was in the in the previous administration, right and the whole different whole different set of Talking points and just challenges right without getting political, right? And and something that we would lean into often is in this type of work. There's something in it for everybody regardless of Your ideology or your politics, right? There's there's something about government working better Working more efficiently being more accessible to more people There's something in it for everyone. It doesn't matter, right? And so I think that's something that I would I would focus on and in our work our work is non-partisan There's nothing inherently political about implementing services that are, you know in law that need to exist, right? So that's that's how I would approach that I would read uh, Recoding America by Jen Palka. The book is out this week now. So I got copies at registrations. Yes, great That's your homework. Read it But I would also just add so I worked on Again, COVID-19.ciera, which is a very political like website because we have I mean governor Newsom um and I think what worked for me was always pointing back to user needs You're not going to solve like the politics or the policy conversations But you can help inform them So whatever thing you're working on What is the actual need that you're trying to solve? What is the problem? What is the product like? Who are we not serving and how could we serve them if we were able to solve for x? Um, and figure out who are the right stakeholders that can help you align toward that x Um, that's that's where the data like practice comes in right like figure out What where are the voices in the room that are not being represented of the people that you're supposed to be serving? And how can you raise those voices through analytics through user stories through user research through all your colleagues? And continue to point back to that Um, that helped me time and time again because I was able to say you know what Users aren't under that people don't understand what you're trying to say with like this blah blah blah blah blah Like can't can we pivot like how we tried this can we design it this way? And it just creates room for conversation. So When in doubt point back to user needs Hello, yeah, sir. I'm I'm I'll be working with the government of Colorado state as a full-stack software engineer Into the mobile Uh, the like I really want to go uh into the like federal and the states like in the civic digital services But the one hurdle uh that we find as an international student is like we are not able to find opportunities for international students, especially from like india and all So, uh, is there any way or how do we find are there any enough opportunities for the international students? Uh, or even the experience professional and how do we find them? New america is a great place to start Yeah There's an organization called code for all also that's like, um It's an it's like code for america, but it has more of an international flavor And they bring I believe they have a job board and I think that they unite They unite like code for america like organizations in many different places So whether you're interested in like us work or things in other other places I think that's a that's a pretty good resource as well. Yeah there's technologists for public good, which is another Like community that you can all be part of that has practitioners from products, etc other different skill sets I'm not sure like the breadth of Like international representation, but I think that's definitely at least a good place to start Uh, there's organizations like anata b. So the grace hopper conference that's coming up in the fall That's the largest One of the largest technology conferences for women and non-binary folks And people of color so I encourage you to look into that I help run a community called the us of tech Which is a coalition of other organizations like America and all these other non-profits that make up the public interest tech space So we often put out stories of people in other communities that That might that you might want to be part of so join the us of tech Let's serve For sure. I'm gonna take an anonymous question from our online folks who are joining us Would love to hear how Or the question is how is your work impacted by working within different administrations? I think that kind of feeds on to the question We just had about yeah politicized things, but would love to hear opinions on on that or thoughts Oh Do you want to go and then I can do that? Yeah, okay. We we overlapped at usds for a few months And so I I think we can tell an interesting story. Maybe here. So at usds at va I one of my colleagues was having a conversation and one of the The career folks at va said something to the effect of like, oh, um, that's okay. Whatever you think, but you know I'm on the b team So you just go ahead and do that. I'm just on the b team, you know And she was like, no, no, you're not on the b team. Like don't think less of yourself And she's like, no, I mean, I'll be here when you're gone you know and and and It was a reminder of like, yeah, like we sometimes we come to these places and we're you know fancy tech whiz kids But at the end of the day, what matters is the impression that we leave with our career Partners, right? And uh, whether or not we were able to plant roots for whatever we're working on that can Stand the test of time, right? And so go back to I think my my earlier answer about our work is non-partisan, right? The things that we do Benefit everybody they help implement laws and policies that We have at whatever level of government be it federal state or local, right? Those That's what it is, right? And that's what we're doing and so I think if you can focus on the non-partisan nature of the work and focus on the idea that like there's something in this for everyone Regardless of what you think politically or regardless of who you're voting for You know in an election. I think that's where that's where we add value Yeah, I mean I I honestly I'm struggling with this question because I don't know if any industry Where this country is at right now is not political. I think that that is simply where this country is at um and political Views are becoming more and more extreme and we have seen more and more division in this country and so I'm struggling with that question because I don't know if it's possible. I think technology Forget technology. I think that products and services at times are political. Um I think politics aside big p politics aside. Um It is important to understand what the values are of your organization And so something that I come back to at us ds is that one of our values is Focus on results not optics There's a lot of interpretations of that and there's probably some underlying meaning there that I'm not going to spell out here on a public stage um But I think the underlying comment is is You are here to and then another value is tell or find the truth tell the truth And then a third one design with users not for them And so kind of bringing all of those three together The values of us ds the values of the organization that I work for are to Find the truth tell the truth to talk to people about what it is It that they actually want built and what is it? What are the needs that in the pain points that they are experiencing that they need served? um And then you know our overarching mission is to bring technology and design to improve government services And so there's a lot of different ways that you can interpret it And yes, but depending on the administration that might look like different programs and different services and all that But at the end of the day you have the agency to go to an organization whose values you are aligned with regardless of who the big a administration might be Um, and even within an organization. I think that you can usually Well, I wouldn't say usually Even within an organization you can at times fill a role that you feel more comfortable working on Even if you're not necessarily aligned with the larger organization and I'll say candidly um I was not necessarily bought into the business model of facebook when I worked there But I thought it was important for me to bring the values that I had around protecting people's privacy around protecting um Youths as they're using social media that if we were going to build these services and these products And they were going to be out there and billions of people were going to use them I sure as hell thought it was important for there to be teams of People who cared about people's privacy and security and the integrity of these products working internally um And again, that's a deeply personal decision that you'll need to decide if that's something you're comfortable with And you can say that you're going to do it for a set amount of time Um, but I do think at the end of the day people need Food people need housing people need like there are basic services that need to be met And regardless of who the administration is those needs still exist and the pain points still exist in the government services so It's a personal decision and I'll say some folks decide to leave federal government Um when there's a change administration, that's perfectly reasonable And some folks decide that's the time that it makes sense to stay. Yeah 100% yeah Yeah, well, thank you panelists I'm going to invite a little bit of the back up to the stage to close this out And we'll quickly answer a question that came in about coding it forwards programs Um that applications closed in january. They did, uh, we don't have opportunities open between the next application cycle Which will I don't think I should be giving this amount and spend but I might uh open early fall sometime probably between october november and uh In between subscribed to our newsletter because we share a newsletter every two weeks that has other jobs and opportunities in this space But we'll hand it back over to you. Well, I for one love this conversation. I am sure that you did I do want to leave you with Three things quickly because I heard a lot of how to and what to do next So I'll leave you with literally homework three things One ask a lot of questions For on where the people with the people that you're working on with the people that you're serving ask a lot of questions in the same weeks The second one write everything as they told you Literally will be we're building this space So I'm sure that there's space for you to write and even publish It can be a twitter feeding can be on tech talk whatever you want to do But write and leave what you learn On on on written or on video on what it is But just write it because we all want to hear it And the third one is connect with each other as I told you at the beginning You are part of this ecosystem now If you don't have 10 emails of the people that are sitting with you when you come out of this room You're doing something wrong. You need to connect. That's the way that we build a network That's the way that we build an ecosystem. So connect with each other ask questions and above all keep writing Thank you so much to a panelist for welcome. It's it's amazing to have you here