TechCongress has chosen six new technologists to come work on Capitol Hill for the coming year as part of the group’s 2020 Congressional Innovation Fellowship.
Victoria Houed, Jennifer Kam, Anna Lenhart, Walter Pope, Peter Terpeluk and John Yaros will participate in this next generation of the fellowship. The fellows come from experience at Google, IBM, Cisco and more, and with expertise in subject areas like cybersecurity, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence.
The mission of TechCongress is simple: to bring more tech expertise to the legislative body that, while in charge of making impactful technology policy decisions, often lacks the behind-the-scenes knowledge necessary to craft this policy well. Fellows work in congressional offices or as staff of congressional committees during their year on the Hill. Past fellows have worked for Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and the House Oversight Committee, to name just a few placements.
TechCongress launched in 2016 with an inaugural class of just two fellows, but since then the lack of tech expertise in Congress has become a significantly more popular talking point. The fellowship placed four fellows in 2017, seven in 2018 and eight in 2019.
The 2020 fellows have already been undergoing orientation — they’ll mark the official launch of the cohort with an event Tuesday.
