Where are you from?: I grew up in rural Northern California outside of the Chico area, and gradually made my way to the Bay Area. I’ve lived in San Francisco for over 10 years now.
Why did you choose to intern with Microsoft?: Microsoft has not traditionally been known for being on the cutting edge of user-centered design, but with the release of products like the Surface and Windows 10, they’ve made some pretty impressive strides, in my opinion surpassing other brands in some areas. Microsoft also has a strong and proven commitment to supporting the emerging field of civic tech, which is all about improving the UX of government and the civic space for everyone. To me this represents a stronger commitment to user needs than I’ve seen from any other major company. I’m proud to be a fellow at a time when both the company and the space are at such a pivotal point in their evolution.
What projects are you working on for your position as tech fellow for Microsoft Bay Area?: I’m going to spend most of my time working on strategy and project management for the SF Open Referral project, which is an effort to create standards, best practices, and tools to enable the sharing and maintenance of high quality social service information across different organizations. By making this process more transparent and efficient, social service providers can focus on providing services for their clients instead of spending huge amounts of time and resources on individual efforts to find and verify this information on their own.
I’m also going to be working on an as-yet-to-be-revealed data visualization project, so watch out for that!
What excites you about civic tech?: I think the thing that excites me the most is that there are so many opportunities to explore and learn and come up with solutions that can fundamentally change the course of people’s lives. There is so much uncharted territory, and I love being at the forefront and breaking new ground.
What’s one problem you hope civic tech will solve for cities?: My hope is that as the civic tech movement grows people will see that you don’t need to be a technologist to get involved and create positive change, because we need everyone’s skills for this to work. I hope that more and more people will be inspired by this to participate in their local governments. In this sense, I think civic tech has the potential to revitalize our democracy.
What gets you excited about you are of work?: I think the thing that is most exciting about being a leader and driving strategy is just how hard it is. I think this is the most abstract and advanced level of design practice, and the stakes are real. There are still very few women in leadership positions in any field, and I want to be someone that others can look up to and that my team can be proud of.
