Erie Meyer, co-founder of United States Digital Service, joins Code for America

San Francisco, CA, March 30, 2017— Erie Meyer, co-founder of United States Digital Service and Tech Ladymafia, joins Code for America. Meyer will sit on the Code for America leadership team, and work closely with the National Advisory Council, to strengthen the network of Brigades, governments, and tech leaders making government work for the people and by the people in the 21st century.

Code for America is a national nonprofit dedicated to the belief that government can work for the people, by the people, in the 21st century, if we all help. The organization’s mission is to make it easier for government to serve the American public, and easier for the public to improve government.  

“I am thrilled to be reunited with Erie, having had the enormous pleasure of working with her at the White House in 2013-14,” said Jennifer Pahlka, Founder and Executive Director of Code for America. “She has been a pioneer and leader in the movement to make government work better for the American people her entire career. Her coming to Code for America means the chance to apply her brilliance and unstoppable positive energy nationwide through the thousands of people dedicated to this idea, and the thousands more who will grow and strengthen the movement.”

Before co-founding the United States Digital Service, Meyer was Senior Advisor to the U.S. CTO at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she worked on President Obama’s Open Data Initiatives, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship, and cross-agency efforts to improve technology in government. Meyer was named a Joan Shorenstein Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she led research on the intersection of open data, journalism, and civic life. She is a serial public entrepreneur, having served on the founding team of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she helped launch the Tech + Innovation Team. She launched a system to collect consumer complaints about financial products and services, such as students loans and credit reporting, and then to publish the data.

“Code for America is a national network of people asking not just how we can fix individual instances of injustice, but what are the systems that can create injustice, and how we can fix them.” said Meyer. “It’s an honor to serve alongside the thousands of people who invest their labor and their dreams in the idea that these systems must work for everyone.”

Meyer will spend her first few months on the job meeting the volunteers who power Code for America — Brigades that represent a network of more than 60,000 tech experts, government staff, and community organizers  who put technology to work for the benefit of their communities.

“It is time for us as a network to invest in our combined strength,” said Jill Bjers, National Advisory Council member and Executive Director of Code for Charlotte. “Local brigades have started to mature and come into their own, but that connection to a national network can still be elusive. I’m looking forward to working with Meyer to make that connection stronger and to realize our collective potential.”

Meyer launched one of the first open source websites in government, when she stood up the first digital office for the Ohio Attorney General. She has also been part of the strategy team at Blue State Digital, working on student loan issues for Senator Ted Kennedy and campaigns like She Should Run, a nonpartisan effort to elect more women to public office.

Meyer is a co-founder of Tech Ladymafia, a group of women living everywhere from San Francisco to Shenzhen, China, working on anything from DIY circuit boards to theoretical physics. She was named one of Forbes’ “30 under 30” for technology, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the National Journal, and more.

Read more about the National Advisory Council and the evolution of the Brigade network.