A panel about the opportunities for technologists to use their skills in the public (and nonprofit/civic tech) sector for the public good.
Key talking points and takeaways for attendees are:
– The public sector is a viable (and even advantageous!) place to use your technology skills.
– In many parts of the public sector, you will learn things and develop skills you wouldn’t learn in the private sector, because the challenges the public sector faces are unique. The flexibility, leadership, perspective, and problem-solving skills you learn in the public sector will make you even more valuable in the private sector.
– The public sector gives you the opportunity to work at immense scale on problems that literally save lives, from easier and more secure voting, to a better DMV experience, to making food stamps easier to apply for, to providing better healthcare for veterans.
– Every technologists should consider public service as a part of their career growth, and especially women–the programs that government technologists work on serve all people, but if they are only built by one group, they will not serve anyone as well as they could.