Build it Locally, Spread it Nationally: the Opportunity for Open Source in Municipal Government

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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Bryan Sivak was appointed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty on October 13, 2009 to the Cabinet post of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the District of Columbia. As CTO, Sivak leads the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), an organization of more than 500 staff that provides technology services and leadership for 86 agencies, 38,000 employees, residents, businesses and millions of visitors.

Sivak has over 15 years of experience in building software and internet technologies and organizations. In 2002, he founded and developed InQuira, Inc., a multi-national technology solutions company whose products are used at top private and public sector organizations including Bank of America, UK Ministry of Defence, Nokia and T-Mobile. During his tenure, he oversaw every aspect of the business from design and development of the product to sales, marketing and management activities relating to the overall execution of InQuira’s business plan and growth of the company. In 2005, he moved to London and opened the European office of the company, which he grew from zero to 30% of the company’s revenue in four years.

Prior to his work with InQira, Sivak founded Electric Knowledge LLC, which provided the world’s first Natural Language Search engine available on the web. The company’s customers included Bank of America and Fidelity Investments and several others. Electric Knowledge eventually merged with Answerfriend, which was the basis for the formation of InQuira.

Sivak holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Chicago.

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