Redesigning Government for a Faster Future with Jennifer Pahlka

May 20, 2023

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Redesigning Government for a Faster Future

GUEST: Jennifer PahlkaDESCRIPTION:This week The Futurists speak with Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America. Jennifer served in Barack Obama's White House as the US Deputy Chief Technology Officer where she launched the US Digital Service. In this episode, Jennifer reveals the tactics to surmount the myriad obstacles that thwart government agencies when they seek to deploy digital technology to improve the delivery of services to citizens. JENNIFER’S WEBSITES:Twitter: https://twitter.com/pahlkadot?s=20Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpahlka/Recoding America: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250266774/recodingamericaCode For America: https://codeforamerica.org/people/jennifer-pahlka/

Recoding AmericaWhy Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

Book Details

A bold call to reexamine how our government operates—and sometimes fails to—from President Obama’s former deputy chief technology officer and the founder of Code for America
Just when we most need our government to work—to decarbonize our infrastructure and economy, to help the vulnerable through a pandemic, to defend ourselves against global threats—it is faltering. Government at all levels has limped into the digital age, offering online services that can feel even more cumbersome than the paperwork that preceded them and widening the gap between the policy outcomes we intend and what we get.
But it’s not more money or more tech we need. Government is hamstrung by a rigid, industrial-era culture, in which elites dictate policy from on high, disconnected from and too often disdainful of the details of implementation. Lofty goals morph unrecognizably as they cascade through a complex hierarchy. But there is an approach taking hold that keeps pace with today’s world and reclaims government for the people it is supposed to serve. Jennifer Pahlka shows why we must stop trying to move the government we have today onto new technology and instead consider what it would mean to truly recode American government.