API Evangelist Goes to Washington

The news is finally out. I will be heading to Washington DC to spend a year as a White House Innovation Fellow. APIs, open data and our government has been a passion of mine for my whole career, something that has escalated over the last year with my work on the White House Digital Strategy and Open Data Policy.

Now my passion for APIs+Government is being taken to a whole new level, and  I will be heading to Washington DC, to join 41 very talented individuals from the private sector, to tackle some of the biggest challenges in our federal government. I will be enjoying the full backing of the White House, to employ APIs to help stimulate innovation within government.

I will be specifically working on the Veterans Affiars

(VA) modernization team with two other very talented individuals, Mollie Ruskin (@mollieruskin) and Ben Willman (@benwillman). We will be working on various projects, with the overall goal of streamlining the VA claims process.

When I received the call from the VA, asking me to come to Washington and help, I could not say no. I'm pretty mission driven, when it comes to APIs, but helping out veterans and using APIs is the ultimate mission for me.

I have not one, but two dads who were Vietnam Veterans. Both are passed on now, but I have personal experience seeing the VA process in operation. I couldn't think of a more important mission for me to embark on, but to help streamline this process.

I will be keeping API Evangelist alive during my time in DC, but will not be taking on any new speaking engagements or projects. I will be dedicating myself 100% to my work at the VA. However I would do the agency a disservice if I did not maintain my awareness of the overall API space.

Thank you to everyone who assisted in making this possible, and I look forward to this next step in my career.