How To Hack The System To Change Government

Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of the Code for America initiative who is now working for the Obama administration as deputy chief technology officer, has been in government for 37 days -- 51 if you count weekends.

Pahlka is counting the days, because she has given herself a year to make a difference in pushing government into the 21st century from a technology perspective. At the Next Generation of Government Summit in Washington on Thursday, Pahlka shared the lessons of her first weeks in government and as head of Code for America, where she worked on civic-oriented data projects at the local government level.

“I know people say that in government, the easy things are hard, and the hard things are impossible,” Pahlka said. “Really? Was it easy to put a man on the moon?”