Building Representative Government
A note from our Founder, Travis Moore
Effective government requires drawing from all of America's talent pools – from Silicon Valley to the Heartland, from veterans to private sector innovators.
Our mission is rooted in service. Just as our military draws strength from recruiting talented Americans from every walk of life and every corner of our nation, we believe Congress benefits from technological expertise that reflects our nation's full spectrum of experiences and perspectives.
TechCongress is building a stronger, more effective Congress by bringing diverse technological talent that represents the lived experience of our nation directly to Capitol Hill through our Congressional Innovation Fellowships.
Building on American Values
The path to Capitol Hill has traditionally relied heavily on personal connections, inadvertently limiting access for qualified individuals and limiting the institution’s access to candidates with the right expertise. This includes veterans transitioning to civilian service and individuals who lack existing Washington networks. Our mission, in part, is to help change that.
Our commitment to inclusion encompasses:
Merit-based representation: Drawing from America's full talent pool across racial and gender lines to ensure Congress benefits from our nation's best minds.
Geographic diversity: Actively recruiting talent from all regions of America, not just coastal tech hubs.
Socioeconomic diversity: Ensuring our fellowships provide competitive compensation that enables participation regardless of financial background.
Military service: Creating pathways for veterans to continue their service to their country by bringing their technological expertise to Congress.
Professional backgrounds: Welcoming technologists from various sectors, including private industry, entrepreneurship, and public service.
A Personal Connection to Service
My father served as a Marine in Vietnam, where exposure to Agent Orange led to his service-connected disability and his diagnosis with Parkinson's disease in summer of 2021. Both my parents were life-long civil servants, with my dad serving on the Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and my mom serving at the Department of Health and Human Services. Growing up in a veteran family showed me just one of the many ways military service shapes not only servicemembers' lives but also their families and communities. While I can't fully understand every veteran's experience, it has deeply influenced our organizational values.
The military has long understood that strength comes from bringing together Americans from all backgrounds, regions, and walks of life. That's why TechCongress is committed to building a fellowship program that mirrors this approach – creating opportunities not just for veterans, but for talented individuals across race, gender, geography, and experience who want to serve their country by strengthening Congress.
Merit-Based Selection & Measurable Results
We believe in merit-based selection that opens doors for all qualified candidates outside of the traditional DC talent pool. This approach has yielded concrete results:
Roughly 45% of our fellows come from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
Consistent representation from heartland states and non-coastal regions.
Strong participation from veterans who want to continue serving their country.
Fellows from diverse professional backgrounds, including startups, industry-leading companies, tech research centers, and military service.
We're proud to be Washington's first organization to implement a diversity referral program, which has been proven to significantly improve candidate retention and success rates. This approach helps us identify exceptional talent from all backgrounds.
Looking Forward
Our goal is to strengthen Congress by ensuring it has the technological expertise and diverse perspectives needed to serve all Americans effectively. Private industry knows that to deliver successful products, teams must include diverse perspectives. We believe the same is true of policy.
We believe that drawing from our nation's full range of talent and experience – regardless of background, geography, or prior connections – is not just the right thing to do, it's essential for maintaining a truly representative government in the digital age.
To be clear, we still have a lot of work to do, but we are proud that we’ve prioritized inclusion from Day 1 of the organization. By bringing together individuals from different backgrounds who understand both technology and its impact on society, we're working to build a Congress that better reflects and serves the entire nation.
*Last updated July 2023*
Gender
TechCongress is committed to building a more inclusive Congress and is proud of our efforts to create a diverse class of fellows that are a part of underrepresented communities.
race
TechCongress builds inclusion into our recruitment process. We are proud to say that underrepresented communities make up a majority of our total fellows and we stand behind our commitment to building a fellowship class that reflects the lived experience of our nation.
Our hiring process.
TechCongress seeks to prioritize inclusion in our hiring processes. As a result, first-round screenings are always anonymous. This means that all personally identifiable information including gender, race, name, address, and political ideology is removed during the initial review. By reviewing candidates anonymously, we hope to remove conscious and unconscious biases from our selection process.
1. Anonymous Review
To best remove bias from applications, all personally identifiable information is hidden to our reviewers. Each Selection Board reviewer independently scores every applicant on a number of criteria. The scores are then averaged out and a senior TechCongress team member selects the top 10-20% of applicants for interviews.
2. First-Round Interview
Each selected applicant goes through a video interview with 3-4 TechCongress team members. Every applicant is asked the same questions, and the interviewees score each candidate prior to discussing with one another to further eliminate biases.
3. Deliberation
Once applicant interviews are scored, an external board of reviewers selects which candidates need a second-round interview.
4. Second-Round Interview
The final candidates go through a second-round interview before final offers are extended. These interviews are to further ensure that the candidates are a good fit for the program.
Read more
What you can expect — including timelines and interviews — in our fellowship application review process.