I’ve spent most of my life watching government dysfunction and thinking “someone should do something about that.” I always envisioned that “someone” as an eminently qualified engineer/lawyer/doctor with fancy degrees and decades of experience. Government work affects millions of people, so how could a random kid from Dallas be qualified to do it? Surely “someone” will fix things. Surely there’s nothing I can do. As it turns out though, that “someone” I envisioned isn’t coming. Nobody is going to magically fix our problems. Someone has to do something, and that someone might as well be me.
I am, at my core, an engineer. To me, being an engineer means being a problem solver. I began my career in cyber security because I’ve always been good with technology (I hacked my first computer in elementary school), and it seemed like the area of technology had the biggest problems that needed solving. This eventually led me to work at a startup called Evernym, where I helped develop innovative new privacy and security enhancing digital identity technology.
Working at Evernym (and its successor companies after it was acquired) was wonderful, but it didn’t fully scratch my problem solving itch. I realized that this was because the biggest problems we face as a society can’t be solved with more and fancier lines of code. Technology is a powerful tool, but it’s useless or even dangerous if we’re not using it right. This is what drove me to work in Congress: I want to help ensure we’re using technology the right way, to solve the most pressing challenges of our time. I believe that technology has the potential to make the government more efficient, transparent, and accountable, and to do so while enhancing our security and privacy.
I’ve seen the good that can come when we get policy right. My wife works as a process engineer at a TSMC plant in Arizona that’s being built partially in response to the CHIPS Act, and my Ukrainian coworkers from Evernym may very well owe their freedom to our support for their defense against Russia. It’s easy to be pessimistic when the world is so full of challenges, but I’m more convinced than ever that we can rise to meet them. I’m working with TechCongress because I’m done waiting for other people to fix things, it’s my turn to give it a shot.