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Jennifer Pahlka (she/her)

Author of "Recoding America: How Government Fails in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better"

Jennifer Pahlka works on making government work for people in the digital age. She is the founder and former executive director of Code for America and served as U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2013–2014, where she founded the United States Digital Service. She also co-founded United States Digital Response, which helps government respond to the Covid-19 crisis with volunteer tech support. She received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and was named by Wired as one of the 25 people who has most shaped the past 25 years. She served on the Defense Innovation Board for four years. Her book Recoding America came out in June 2023.

Jennifer is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Oakland, California.

Sessions

Implementing Implementation

November 6, 2023  4:30 PM – 4:55 PM
Government has an implementation crisis. The idea that laws are passed, and magically turn into services everyone can access easily, is a fiction. There's a "murky middle" between policy and implementation, made worse by the ever-increasing complexity of legislation. And the public service is left to pick up the pieces. See more.

Breakfast and Book Club with Jen Pahlka

November 7, 2023  1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Start off Day 2 of FWD50 with some breakfast and a book club chat with Jen Pahlka. Come prepared to discuss urgent lessons from her book Recoding America that very much also apply to Canada. See more.
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