Gov Tech Clinic: Bring Us Your Problems

Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O’Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, the Web 2.0 Summit, and the Gov 2.0 Summit. Tim’s blog, the O’Reilly Radar “watches the alpha geeks” to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is on the boards of CollabNet and Safari Books Online, and is a partner in O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

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Jennifer Pahlka is the founder and executive director of a new non-profit, Code for America. Previously she was the co-chair and general manager of the Web 2.0 events for TechWeb, in partnership with O’Reilly. Prior to that, she chaired Enterprise 2.0, and before that was the director of the Game Group at CMP. During her tenure in the games business, she oversaw the dramatic growth of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) from 1995 to 2003 and launched a number of notable programs, including the Independent Games Festival, known as the Sundance of the game industry, and the Game Developers Choice Awards. Her roles included publisher of Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra.com, the premiere web site for game developers, and executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), an independent non-profit association serving game developers around the world. She has served on the advisory boards of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and the GDC and held a board of directors position on the IGDA for three years. She is a graduate of Yale University.

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Matthew Burton is a technology consultant to the U.S. Government. He writes frequently on technology’s impact on democracy and government, and authored the opening chapter of O’Reilly’s “Open Government.”

His newest project, launched this August, is competinghypotheses.org, an open source research and problem solving tool created originally for the intelligence community but with broad applications throughout all levels of government.

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Phil is the Open Government Program Manager at OpenPlans, a non-profit organization that develops technology and media to improve civic services, urban livability, and local democracy. Phil’s specific focus is to facilitate collaboration between cities on the development of open standards and best practices around open government initiatives. Recently Phil has been helping to direct and mediate the development of the Open311 standard so that cities can leverage web enabled 311 services in an open and interoperable way.

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