The soldier grinned and asked "Hey, what happens if I accidentally deleted the app?" I smiled and replied, "Don't worry. We thought of that too."
In late 2019, I spent two full days in Camp Bullis, Texas participating in a test and evaluation event for the Army's Next Generation Biometric Collection Capability. For the past 8 months, I had led a team of developers and machine learning engineers in an effort to build a faster, more accurate, and lighter biometric collection device. The goal was to produce something that soldiers would use in the field to collect, validate, and verify the identity of foreign nationals they may encounter. This was about safety and security as much as collecting critical intelligence. After many long hours, we succeeded and were now being evaluated by actual soldiers in a mock training "village."
I was elated.
Fast forward to the summer of 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, and the small business I was working for was mired in contractual minutiae that was preventing us from moving from a developmental phase to actually delivering what we had built to the Army. It was like pulling teeth but not because of any one person or organization. Everyone seemed to be pulling in the same direction, but obstacle after obstacle would appear and stop all forward progress. It seemed that some unknowable, massive force was against us - the system! This is how I learned, first hand, about all of the shortcomings in policy as applied to innovation and technology.
My career motivation is simple and common; find hard problems and work on them with talented people. Do hard, interesting, and rewarding stuff. I've always had a supreme interest in Defense and National security, so most of my working life has been oriented in that direction. Somehow, in my early 20s, I became an accidental data scientist with a knack for leading heterogeneous teams. I've learned that working with mission-oriented folks is infinitely rewarding and that most of the big problems in defense technology and innovation are self-inflicted and often wind up in the weeds of legislation and policy.
I applied to join TechCongress because I wanted to work in a completely different way than I had before. A technologist around policy experts and lawmakers. A fish out of water, perhaps, but, hopefully, providing some insight into the state of technology as it is today and what Congress can do to better implement technology for purposes of Defense and National security. Broadening the scope even more, I believe technologists working in the Public Interest will be critical to the ongoing preservation and revitalization of the American innovation ecosystem. I hope to play a small role in that.