The Technology Deficit: Attracting Tech Talent into Government and Civil Society

Technology is a powerful force in our daily lives and in the functioning of government and global markets. Yet today there are too few talented people with technical expertise in government and civil society. This talent gap hinders government from effectively serving its citizens, and has a negative impact on the quality of social debate and regulatory decision-making around technology policy.
 
Recent events such as the rollout of HealthCare.Gov and the ongoing debates about the limits of government surveillance have drawn attention to why we need more technology talent in government. Unfortunately, there has been little discussion of how to build and sustain such needed technological capacity.
 
The New America Foundation and the MIT Information Policy Project discussed the in-depth findings from a recent report commissioned by the Ford and MacArthur Foundations and authored by Freedman Consulting, LLC, which examines the underlying causes and possible solutions to address this technology talent gap. Our experts discussed the implications of this technological deficit and considered recommendations for building a more robust talent pipeline to find, attract, and retain technically skilled people in our government and civil society.

Join the conversation online by using #TechDeficit and by following @OTI.
 

Participants
Introduction: 
Anne-Marie Slaughter
President and CEO of the New America Foundation 
@SlaughterAM 
 
Featured Speakers: 
Susan Crawford
Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property, Harvard Law School
Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law 
Former Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy
@scrawford
 
Tom Kalil
Deputy Director for Policy of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Senior Advisor for Science, Technology and Innovation of the National Economic Council
@whitehouseostp
 
Ashkan Soltani
Independent Researcher and Technology Consultant
@ashk4n
 
Dan Tangherlini
Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)
@DanGSA
 
Moderator:
Alan Davidson
Vice President for Technology Policy and Strategy and Director of the Open Technology Institute Co-founder of the MIT Information Policy Project
@abdavidson