I don’t really think of myself as a tech person.
It’s true that I have spent the better part of 15 years building and running technology used by tens of millions of people. I have been a software engineer, a product manager, a tech hiring manager, and a Chief Technology Officer. I have been a technical consultant or advisor to at least a dozen organizations across the for-profit, nonprofit, political, and government sectors. I even have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
Yet tech itself has never gotten me up in the morning. When it comes to technology, I have only ever been motivated by the potential positive impact that technology can have on marginalized communities. That’s what has made me want to spend my time on it for all these years.
However, as I have gotten older and spent more time on the same sorts of problems over and over, I have become deeply dissatisfied focusing on the narrow scope of problems for which building technology is an actual solution, and I have seen the alarming effects that bad tech policy has had on vulnerable people everywhere. I have increasingly found that my ability to help people, even through innovative technology, has been hindered by the limitations of state and federal policy made by legislators far removed from the people affected by their decisions.
It is this continuing revelation that has made me want to work upstream, where policy is actually made. I recognize it’s a fairly radical and unusual career change at this stage in my life. Moreover, not everyone has a clear path to go from tech implementation to tech policy on a national level. But that is the very premise of TechCongress. I can’t wait to get started and am grateful for the opportunity.
More about Eric here.