The American Mind: Don’t Defund the (Antitrust) Police

Alumn Mike Wacker authors an article discusses Big Tech and legislators roles in regulating them.

As the House gets ready to vote on a bipartisan package of antitrust bills that would target Big Tech, Congressman Jim Jordan—who would set the antitrust agenda if the GOP wins the House this November—slammed his foot on the brakes. “Do you think,” he asked, “we should give the Biden DOJ and FTC more money?” This package, in fact, does not give them more money, but given Jordan’s emphasis, and his fiscally conservative bent, one has to wonder if he plans to defund the (antitrust) police.

EqualAI: NIST will cultivate trust in AI by developing a framework for AI risk management

Alumni Ellie Sakhaee writes for EqualAI about the steps to establish a framework for managing risks associated with AI systems

Despite their astonishing capabilities, today’s AI systems come with various societal risks, such as discriminatory outputs and privacy violations. Minimizing such risks can, therefore, lead to AI systems that are better aligned with societal values, hence, more trustworthy. Directed by Congress, NIST has taken important steps to establish a framework for managing risks associated with AI systems through creating a process to identify, measure, and minimize risks.

More than 167 guidelines and sets of principles have been developed for trustworthy, responsible AI. They generally lay out high level principles. The NIST framework, however is unique from many others because it aims to translate principles “into technical requirements that can be used by designers, developers, and evaluators to test the systems for trustworthy AI,” Elham Tabassi, the Chief of Staff at the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at NIST, said on the In AI we Trust? podcast with EqualAI and the World Economic Forum.

Government Needs Diverse Public Interest Technologists to Improve Services

A former fellow, Victoria Houed, mentioned TechCongress in her blog post on the Stanford Social Innovation Review:

This feeling of empowerment as a newly minted public interest technologist prompted me to apply to TechCongress, a year-long fellowship that places technologists into a congressional office or committee. I had no idea when I applied that I would end up working for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2020 or that two months after my arrival in Washington, DC, a deadly pandemic would begin.

New House Digital Services Office seeks to fill gaps to modernize Congress

The Federal News Network announced TechCongress’ role in contributing tech expertise to Congress:

The CAO, which first announced its plan to create a digital services office in March at a hearing of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, is hiring both new employees but also bringing in experts from the U.S. Digital Service as well as TechCongress, an innovation fellowship that places technologists with Congress for a year.

TechCongress Planning to Place 120 Technologists in Congress by 2026

MeriTalk announces TechCongress’ grant from the Knight Foundation, and reports on our goal to place 20 technologists in Congress by 2026:

Congress is due to get a big influx of skilled technologists who will act as advisers to congressional offices courtesy of the TechCongress Congressional Innovation Fellowship.

The Knight Foundation invested $2.5 million in the TechCongress organization, which places early and mid-career technologists in congressional offices. The funding will allow TechCongress to place up to 120 technologists on the Hill through the fellowship program, the Knight Foundation announced.

To date, TechCongress has already placed 65 fellows in Congress, and 15 of them have had their positions converted to full-time roles. The organization’s goal with the new investment is to increase its annual fellowship class size to 24 members, with the hope of converting one-third of those fellows into full-time positions.

“Understanding the mechanics of current, new and emerging tech is critical for governing in the 21st century,” Lilian Coral, the Knight Foundation’s director for national strategy and technology innovation, said. “By increasing technical expertise in Congress, TechCongress fellows help our elected officials better assess how technology impacts Americans’ lives.”

The investment will also allow TechCongress to increase its recruitment efforts and boost the representation of groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in tech.

The fellowship brings in data scientists, computer scientists, and computer engineers and places them in an equal number of Democratic and Republican offices. The fellows are then able to advise members of Congress on issues like IT modernization and technology policy.

“Our fellows are forward-thinkers that not only bring critical knowledge to urgent tech policy challenges but also bring new and creative methods to problem-solving by centering users at the heart of the policymaking process,” Travis Moore, founder and executive director of TechCongress, said.

“Fellows are ensuring that lawmakers are at the forefront of cybersecurity and privacy challenges, while also supporting Congress to leverage new and emerging tech to make government officials more responsive to the needs of their constituents,” Moore continued.

The application for TechCongress’ 2023 Congressional Innovation Fellowship class opens June 7 and will run through August 10.

TechCongress to place 120 more technologists with lawmakers

FedScoop reports on TechCongress’ new grant from the Knight Foundation and the work our fellows have done:

TechCongress plans to place about 120 early and mid-career technologists in key congressional offices to advise lawmakers on technology decisions critical to the success of cities.

The Knight Foundation invested $2.5 million in TechCongress’ Congressional Innovation Fellowship to embed data science, computer engineering and web design experts with the goal of having about 40 become full-time positions.

TechCongress began the effort in 2015 and has seen the Knight Foundation provide $3.9 million total in grants that sent 65 fellows to Congress, about 20 of whom were retained.

The fellowship launched, in part, because only seven out of about 3,500 congressional staffers had formal tech training in 2015.

TechCongress hopes about 40 of the 120 new fellows become full-time, bringing the number up to 60 in key offices it’s identified dealing with cybersecurity, IT modernization, tech antitrust, health care, and website issues.

Because TechCongress wants consensus around the technology solutions lawmakers support, it places diverse fellows in Republican and Democratic offices equally.

TechCongress also created a Congressional Digital Service Fellowship to help Congress transition to remote work during the height of the pandemic, and the body opted to make a House Digital Service permanent in January.

The hope is with 60 full-time technologists in key congressional advisory positions, that will become the standard, and TechCongress might move on to expanding the tech capacity of other government institutions like the judiciary.