Biography
In 2009, after a career in technology media, Jennifer founded Code for America. Based on the idea of “government as a platform,” the organization started by placing small startup teams inside City Halls around the country. The teams of Code for America fellows showed what’s possible when government takes a user-centered, iterative, data-driven approach to meeting the needs of its people, instead of a compliance-focused approach. The results were extraordinary and sparked a quiet revolution among public servants and concerned citizens (especially tech industry professionals) everywhere.
In 2013, Todd Park, the US Chief Technology Officer, had noticed the impact of the Code for America movement in state and local government and wanted to bring it to Washington, DC. He recruited Jennifer to be his Deputy CTO for Government Innovation. She used the platform to start the groundbreaking and sometimes controversial United States Digital Service, a new branch of the White House. The USDS is now made up of a few hundred technologists and designers, many of whom arrived in Washington to help rescue the embattled healthcare.gov website and stayed on to ensure that President Obama’s other top priorities, including benefits for veterans and access to education, actually worked in their implementations.
From 2009 – 2020, Jennifer led Code for America, which operates dramatically better digital services for state and local governments, providing the proof points for thousands of others that government can work as it should for the American people in a digital age. Code for America also organizes a nationwide movement bringing together everyone from high-ranking government officials to local community volunteers and organizers, who together show how government must work by the people. Most recently, Code for America’s program Clear My Record has been able to clear more than 100,000 outdated cannabis convictions from the criminal records of struggling Americans.
Jennifer also serves on the Defense Innovation Board and the board of the Tech Talent Project. She has advised the Rand Corporation in its development of a new public policy graduate degree, the State of California on modular, agile procurement, and various federal agencies on digital talent strategy. She frequently writes and speaks about transforming government, particularly the social safety net and the emergent field of iterative, user-centered policy making. She is an ardent advocate for bottom-up, citizen-led government. Jennifer is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Oakland, CA with her husband, Tim O’Reilly, her daughter, and the family’s six chickens.
Select Awards
- Wired 25, 2018: Named by Wired magazine as one of the 25 icons who’ve influenced the past 25 years
- The Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, 2018
- The Churchill Club Global Benefactor Award, 2018
- David Packard Award, 2016
- San Francisco Chronicle Visionary of the Year Nominee, 2016
- Demos Transforming America Award, 2015
- Women In Technology (WITI) Hall of Fame, 2014
- MIT’s Kevin Lynch Award, 2013
- National Democratic Institute’s Democracy Award, 2013
- Government Technology Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers, 2012
- Oxford Internet Institute’s Internet and Society Award, 2012
Fellowships
- Ashoka Fellow, appointed 2012
- Volcker Alliance
- National Academy of Public Administration
