Learn more about our January 2025 Congressional Fellowships by listening to a recording of one of our info sessions.
We’re looking for up to 16 engineers, computer scientists, and other technologists to join us as fellows in January 2025.
We award $500 to someone who refers a veteran or transitioning service member, underrepresented person of color, woman, or nonbinary individual to the fellowship.
FedScoop announces the creation and impending launch of the new House Digital Services (HDS):
HDS is tasked with building intuitive solutions that improve on member offices’ most significant challenges. It comes after nonprofit groups, like TechCongress and others, have for years looked to inject tech talent into Congress through digital service fellowships.
Alumni Celeste Chamberlain interviewed in an article about Apple’s small business targeting.
Take 3.14 Academy, a Maryland-based nonprofit that provides children with autism, their families, and communities with educational initiatives and training. In July 2019, founder Celeste Chamberlain, an autism specialist and the mother of two autistic children herself, filed what she thought would be a routine trademark application for her academy’s logo, featuring the Greek letter pi inside an apple.
But Apple’s lawyers intervened. In a 257-page filing opposing Chamberlain’s application, Apple argued that it is deeply involved in education due to the fact that, among other things, it has donated iPads and Mac computers to schools, offers educational apps in its App Store, and makes GarageBand available to music teachers. Therefore, the filing argued, 3.14 Academy’s logo was “likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception in the minds of consumers.”
In an interview with TTP, Chamberlain said that she and her lawyer were initially baffled by Apple’s opposition to her trademark and thought the company and its legal team would quickly realize it was all a big mistake.
The fabric of the United States is made up of so many threads -- some are frayed, some have snapped, some were hastily sewn in during a bygone time, and many are beautiful. That beauty and the continuing complexities it faces and where that leaves you or me or our families is something that connects every single one of us.
As a Congressional Innovation Scholar, it’s important to me to bring in diverse voices from these communities and experts to address critical policy questions. By doing so, we can minimize the disparate impacts of information and algorithm-driven systems while also creating a new landscape for technical innovation without potentially harmful outcomes. I am committed to helping inform technology policy that addresses digital equity issues, as well as transparency and privacy concerns for historically excluded communities to ensure that underprivileged people have an equitable and livable future.
Through the Congressional Innovation Scholars Program, individuals like me who were told it's impossible to achieve specific dreams are now making it possible! I enter this program with clear eyes and a whole heart ready to build on the legacy of those who have served before me. At the end of this year, I hope that I will have made meaningful change for the citizens of our country.
Working in tech has allowed me to come back to the public sector with a new urgency. I believe the most important policy question of our time is to figure out how to increase the government’s technical capacity. Everything from improving the technical tools a government employee uses to increasing the knowledge government officials have about ubiquitous and emerging technologies should be a priority.
While I loved my time in Silicon Valley working on some incredible projects and companies with brilliant people, it became patently obvious that what I viewed as “world changing” was not shared with what most venture capitalists and many of my peers thought was worth investing in and building. I have nothing against people who want to build a startup that enables home delivery of groceries in 10 minutes instead of an hour, but it’s not the sort of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. And in a city when my morning walk was past multiple tent communities full of mentally ill or drug addicted people literally dying on the streets, the cognitive dissonance of not working on solving the most urgent problems for society when you have the resources to do so got to me and I seriously began to rethink what enabled entrepreneurship, how incentives are structured, and how to really do good in the world at scale.
I joined TechCongress because I want to help shape a safe, secure, and accessible future for all Americans, and grow while doing so. I've seen firsthand the ability that policy has to make or break services provided to the American people. I’m excited for the opportunity to learn in the first branch and can’t wait for what’s to come!
Alumni Mike Wacker authored an article for the Federalist about CSAM Laws.
In the leadup to the Communication Decency Act of 1996, America was concerned about the Internet exposing children to pornography. The July 1995 cover of Time magazine, titled “Cyberporn,” depicted a child staring at a computer with this caption: “Exclusive: A new study shows how pervasive and wild it really is. Can we protect our kids — and free speech?”
Today, our biggest problem is not children who are exposed to pornography. It’s children who are involved in pornography or child sexual abuse material — CSAM, as it’s known. When victims of CSAM seek justice in the courts, however, section 230 of the Communication Decency Act — a law that protects digital platforms from liability for third-party content— often blocks their lawsuits.
For me, the Congressional Innovation Fellowship was a natural next step. And it’s part of my responsibility as an American to take my local government experience in Miami to the federal level. The same way that I’ve contributed my small grain of sand to make Miami a more resilient City, I will make Congress and our nation more resilient. Whether contributing my expertise in emerging technologies, leveraging data to measure the impact of policy making, or helping facilitate rocket launch and reentry licensing - I’m here to make sure our nation excels at being the beacon of freedom around the globe.
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.
When the opportunity came around to apply to and join TechCongress, I knew that this was the opportunity. I want to dedicate my life to having a more direct impact on social change. From my experience in the Net Neutrality fight, I knew what it was like to change the minds of one company on one issue; what excites me about working in Congress is the ability to have more of a profound impact. My fellowship is just beginning, but I’m incredibly excited about the work I’ll do over the course of this year.
FedScoop announces the creation of the new House Digital Services (HDS) and mentions how TechCongress has contributed to its development:
The new service is tasked with building intuitive solutions that improve on member offices’ most significant challenges. It comes after nonprofit groups, like TechCongress and others, have for years looked to inject tech talent into Congress through digital service fellowships.
