Where are you from? I was born in Southern California and lived there until 1994 when my family moved north; shortly after moving Northern California I fell in love with the SF Bay Area and have since referred to the region as my home.
What are you studying in college? My major is Business Information Systems and I’m very excited to be in my final semester of undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University. My educational and career focus is working with cutting edge technologies that improve the daily lives of individual citizens and society as a whole.
Why did you choose to be a fellow at Microsoft? I have always dreamed of a career working with cutting edge technologies and am passionate about innovative solutions that impact people and society in a positive way. I want to work on a team that is energetic about changing our world for the better through technology and therefore, made the decision to become a Fellow at Microsoft because the position allows me to follow my professional dreams and personal passions.
What projects are you working on for your position as tech fellow for Microsoft Bay Area? My main project right now is working with the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR) to analyze mass transit availability data with the goal of identifying areas that need more frequent and more consistent transit services. This project interests me because if the availability of mass transit is improved, it will be more enticing to commuters than driving their own vehicles.
What excites you about civic tech? Civic tech enthusiasts identify issues plaguing society and innovate technological solutions to remedy the identified issue(s). I enjoy working with technology and helping others learn how to utilize technology as a tool to make their jobs and lives easier. I truly believe that we, as a society, can innovate new sustainable solutions that replace outdated technologies which are not environmentally friendly such as mass transit that runs on 100% renewable energy which reduces pollution greatly or cheaper methods of desalination in order to combat the drought in California and elsewhere around the world.
What’s one problem you hope civic tech will solve for cities? I hope that civic technologists and enthusiasts can drastically improve public transportation systems because this would allow more people to travel efficiently around the greater SF Bay Area. Commuters, students, and tourists would all appreciate mass transit that is consistently available and more frequent than the current systems.
What gets you excited about sustainable technology? It is very exciting to work on a team with such brilliant people who share the a common goal of improving society through the use and application of technology. As a frequent rider on BART, MUNI and Caltrain I’m thrilled to be working on cutting edge projects such as the visualization of Caltrain data which could lead to improvements to an outdated transit system.
