When you think of a slow, analogue and decidedly not tech-savvy organisation, probably the first one that comes to your mind is our fair government. It’s not just Poland, though, as around the world governments have been slow to enter the 21st century. One maker working to change this is our next speaker, Catherine Bracy, who earned her stripes revolutionising one of the least tech-savvy processes: the U.S. presidential campaign.
Catherine launched and helped run the San Francisco-based Tech Field Office for the 2012 Obama presidential campaign, utilising the grassroots nature of the Internet to spread grassroots support for her candidate, and working with numerous engineers to develop technologies that would enable this.
After helping Obama win the White House (again), Catherine set her sights on bringing technology to governments not just in the U.S. She joined Code for America, a non-profit organisation whose aims including helping local governments use technology to connect with its constituents and vice versa. She is a firm believer in making a true government of and by the people, and wants to discourage the common hacker mentality of us (hackers) versus them (the government) and instead focus on how all of us can improve the role of local governments.
CfA itself is near and dear to our hearts, as it inspired us to organise last year’s Hackathon that led to the Otwarta Małopolska project. As its International Program Manager, Catherine will be instrumental in making our very own Code for Poland project come to life. But before that, she will speak at TEDxKraków 2013 and share her knowledge on making governments work for the people.