The nonprofit mRelief has built an easy-to-use tool on web, text and voice for Americans to sign up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and it has connected more than 365,000 families to social services. Before mRelief, Afriyie was a marketing associate for Google, where she co-produced Oprah Winfrey’s first Google Plus Hangout and President Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union Hangout. She interned in the Domestic Policy Council of the White House during the passage of the Affordable Care Act. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Michigan. Afriyie is a lifetime learner of Ruby code, a writer, board chair of BYP100 Chicago, and a changemaker who lives in Chicago.

Story Bellows is a partner at Cityfi, an urban advisory services firm working at the intersection of technology, governance, public-private partnership and public space. Before joining Cityfi, Bellows was Brooklyn Public Library’s chief innovation and performance officer. She also launched and directed the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics in Philadelphia; was director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a National Endowment for the Arts leadership initiative; and was director of research in a private design practice in Chicago. Bellows has held leadership positions with the Urban Land Institute, Community Design Collaborative, and Archeworks, and her work has been recognized by The New York Times, CityLab, GovTech, Bloomberg and other leading publications. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University and a master’s from the London School of Economics in city design and social science.

John S. Bracken joined the Digital Public Library of America in 2017 after nearly two decades as a philanthropic investor in digital media, media policy and innovation. He most recently was vice president for technology innovation at Knight Foundation, where he oversaw the Knight News Challenge, Knight’s Prototype Fund and other efforts to improve the creation, curation and accessibility of information. He previously managed civic innovation programs at the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Bracken has a master’s degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s from Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He serves on the board of the Illinois Humanities Council and resides in Chicago.

As Knight’s director of national strategy, Lilian Coral manages the national portfolio and focuses on the development of the foundation’s Smart Cities strategy. She came to Knight in 2017 from the city of Los Angeles, where she was chief data officer for Mayor Eric Garcetti. In this role, she led the mayor’s directive on open data beyond the lens of transparency and toward his vision of a data-driven Los Angeles through the management of the city’s Open Data program, the expansion of the use of data science and analytics, and the development of user-centered digital services. Coral led the development of the GeoHub, a first-of-its-kind data management solution for integrating geospatial information across the city of Los Angeles’ 41 departments, and oversaw the publishing of 1,100 city datasets and APIs, the management of five portals of operational and financial data, and the rollout of over 15 digital services, applications and public-facing dashboards. Before joining the mayor’s office, Coral spent 15 years working on a wide range of health and human services issues as an advocate and executive leader, having had the opportunity to work with labor unions, nongovernmental organizations, foundations and human service agencies at all levels of government to transform the way government uses data and technology to serve its citizens. Coral has a bachelor’s degree in international studies from the University of California, Irvine and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a native of Colombia, where much of her inspiration for innovation and social justice emerged.

Mark de la Vergne has been chief of mobility innovation for Mayor Mike Duggan for three years. He is tasked with bringing new mobility services and technologies to Detroit residents. This has included a first/last mile pilot with Lyft, expansion of car share to the neighborhoods of Detroit, the deployment of 1,200 e-scooters, and an autonomous shuttle service for the largest employer in downtown. Over the summer, he led the implementation of a new integrated fare policy and brand, and the launch of mobile payment for all transit in the Detroit region. Before joining the city, de la Vergne worked as a consultant with cities across North America on transportation projects. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Tiana Epps-Johnson is leading a team that is doing groundbreaking work to make U.S. elections more inclusive and secure. Prior to CTCL, she was the New Organizing Institute’s election administration director from 2012 to 2015. She previously worked on the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. In 2015, Epps-Johnson joined the inaugural class of Technology and Democracy Fellows at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2018, she was selected to join the inaugural class of Obama Foundation Fellows. She earned a master’s degree in politics and communication from the London School of Economics and a B.A. in political science from Stanford University.

Jascha Franklin-Hodge is the executive director of the Open Mobility Foundation. This city-led foundation helps government and industry collaborate to develop open source tools and data standards that support adoption and regulation of emerging mobility technology. He previously served as Boston’s chief information officer and lead the city’s Department of Innovation and Technology. He managed a team responsible for the city’s efforts to build exceptional, user-centered digital services, harness data to improve quality of life, empower city employees with effective technology, and improve access to the internet and technical skills training for city residents. Previously, Franklin-Hodge co-founded Blue State Digital, where he oversaw the development and operation of BSD Tools, a fundraising, email and CRM platform that raised over $1 billion and powered the digital presence of President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Franklin-Hodge has been a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, focused on mobility, technology, and public policy, and a consultant to the private sector on new mobility and smart cities. He serves on the boards of LivableStreets Alliance, Tech Goes Home, and MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange). He studied computer science at MIT.

Stephen Goldsmith is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and the director of the Innovations in Government Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He directs Data-Smart City Solutions, the Project on Municipal Innovation, the Civic Analytics Network and Operational Excellence in Government. Previously, he served as the deputy mayor of New York and the mayor of Indianapolis. His most recent book is “A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance.”

Eric Gordon is a professor of civic design and the director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College in Boston. His research focuses on the transformation of public life and governance in digital culture, and the incorporation of play into collaborative design processes. He has served as an expert adviser for local and national governments, as well as nongovernmental organizations around the world, designing responsive processes that encourage play, delight and deliberation. He has created over a dozen games for public sector use and advised organizations on how to build their own inclusive and meaningful processes. He is the author of two books about media and cities, and is the editor of “Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice” (MIT Press, 2016). He has two books coming out in 2020: “Meaningful Inefficiencies: Civic Design in an Age of Digital Expediency” from Oxford University Press, and the edited volume “Ludics: Play From Antiquity to Present” from Palgrave.

Before joining Knight Foundation in April 2019, Ellen Hwang served in Philadelphia’s Office of Innovation and Technology, where she oversaw the creation of SmartCityPHL, the city’s first road map to guide the use of technology in serving the community and improving government services. Before working with the city of Philadelphia, she directed programs at the city’s Asian Arts Initiative. There, she collaborated with the community, as well as artists, culture-based organizations and schools, to develop and implement youth programs that engaged them in arts and community development projects. Hwang is a regular speaker on topics such as smart cities, community-driven technology planning and design, and engagement strategies for local government. She has presented at prominent events including South by Southwest, the Smart Cities New York Conference, and Tech Foundations for Congressional Staff at the Georgetown University Law Center. Hwang has lived in Philadelphia for 13 years and grew up in greater Philadelphia. She is a graduate of Temple University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a Master of Science in city and regional planning. She is a member of American Planning Association PA Emerging Professionals, and the CoLab Philadelphia Task Force with Thomas Jefferson University.

Gabe Klein is a former commissioner of transportation in Chicago and Washington, D.C. In both cities he revamped technology platforms and government processes while focusing on making city streets more people-friendly. This included launching two of the first and largest bike-share systems in the U.S. and building protected bike lanes and better pedestrian infrastructure for vulnerable citizens citywide, as well as facilitating private services like car-sharing and ride-sharing that could help each city’s mobility goals. Klein honed his creativity and leadership skills working in business, including Zipcar as vice president; Bikes USA as national director of stores; and his own electric-powered, organic food truck chain, On the Fly. Post-government, and after a fellowship with the Urban Land Institute in 2014, Klein joined Fontinalis Partners as a special venture partner on its $100 million second fund. He also advises governments and companies worldwide on innovation in cities including Singapore, where he was a visiting fellow for the Centre for Liveable Cities, working on creating a “car-lite” city-state. In 2015, Klein published “Start-Up City” with David Vega-Barachowitz on Island Press, a manifesto on revamping how (and how quickly) we innovate in cities and rethinking public-private partnerships with a triple-bottom-line approach as technology shapes a dramatically different future. Klein sits on the boards of Streetsblog and Carma, and on the advisory boards of NACTO and Zendrive. He also advises next-gen startups including Phone2Action and TransitScreen. As transportation commissioner, he worked to bring a new Riverwalk to Chicago as well as the Bloomingdale Trail, hundreds of miles of bike lanes, new policies combined with technology solutions to revamp parking, permitting, and many other arcane government processes.

Dedicated to connecting communities to each other and their changing environment, Julia Kumari Drapkin founded ISeeChange after a decade of reporting natural disasters and climate change across the globe and in her own backyard on the Gulf Coast. ISeeChange has received national and regional awards, as well as recognition by the Obama White House Climate Data Initiative, NASA, MIT Solve, Echoing Green and Grist. Drapkin is a founding member of the American Geophysical Union’s Science to Action working group, serves on the board of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and has consulted for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Before ISeeChange, Drapkin worked for the Nature Conservancy; PRI’s The World; GlobalPost; The Associated Press; the St. Petersburg Times in Florida; and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. Prior to journalism, Drapkin worked in anthropology and archaeology for seven years in Central America. It was there that she first appreciated the expertise everyday people have in their own backyards and how much we miss when their voices aren’t included.

Nico Larco is a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Oregon, where he is the director of the Urbanism Next Center and co-director of the Sustainable Cities Institute. Urbanism Next is focused on how technological advances such as new mobility, autonomous vehicles, e-commerce and the sharing economy are changing city form and development. Larco assists cities and projects with future-proofing, has run workshops and charrettes nationally and internationally on this topic, and is coordinating work in this area with municipal and state agencies across North America and in Europe. Larco also researches sustainable urban design, has developed the Sustainable Urban Design Framework and assists projects in how best to apply these principles and approaches. His work has been covered by Wired, The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and the Financial Times of London. Larco is a principal at Larco/Knudson, an urban design consulting firm, and a strategic adviser at TNO, a Dutch think tank.

Spend enough time with Beth Niblock and you will understand two things clearly. One, she is earnest in her belief that transparency is the lifeblood of a healthy government. Two, she loves big challenges. Before coming to Detroit, Niblock was the first CIO appointed to a merged Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government in 2003. She was challenged with unifying IT systems and infrastructure while implementing systems. During her 11 years at the helm, her teams won numerous awards. Niblock was tapped by the Obama administration to serve on a team of technology officials to support the city of Detroit. It was her introduction to Detroit, and the opportunity to come back was too enticing to walk away from. As the city’s CIO, she is managing significant upgrades to infrastructure, making city business transparent and making Detroit online an easy place to do business with.

Erica Raleigh is the executive director of Data Driven Detroit, a social enterprise dedicated to democratizing data for better decision-making. After a decade working in Detroit’s community development ecosystem, Raleigh still believes strongly in the power of data to ensure the efficacy of programs that improve quality of life.

As the inaugural director of Detroit Urban Solutions at TechTown Detroit, Paul Riser Jr. leads a technology innovation consortium dedicated to advancing the growth of greater Detroit’s tech ecosystem and supporting the development of solutions to challenges that face Detroit and other urban areas. The core focal areas for Detroit Urban Solutions are digital health, mobility, civic and smart city technologies.

At the Michigan Mobility Institute, Jessica Robinson works to accelerate the development of talent for the growing mobility industry. Starting in 2021, the institute will offer the first-of-its-kind Master of Mobility program. The institute is the first initiative of the Detroit Mobility Lab, which Robinson co-founded to focus on building the mobility talent infrastructure necessary to shape the sector’s future in Detroit. Robinson previously led the development of next-generation mobility efforts at Ford Smart Mobility, where she was City Solutions director, and at Zipcar where she held roles in growth, operations and marketing across North America. Her background in technology and innovation includes work launching startup accelerator programs at Techstars with industry-leading corporate partners. She is an active startup mentor and microlender who invests in women entrepreneurs and business owners in Detroit.

At Democracy Works, Mike Rogers is leading the fundraising and donor relationships that fund its voter engagement mission. He started his career in his home state of Ohio with the American Cancer Society as a regional director, managing a team that handled all aspects of fundraising. His experience also includes the American Red Cross and Keep America Beautiful, both national organizations with complex fundraising programs. All the while, he followed his personal passion of civic engagement and encouraging people in his community to participate in our government. Now in New York City, Rogers has merged his personal passion with his professional work and is building partnerships with key stakeholders to support the critical mission of Democracy Works.

As Knight’s director of national initiatives, Gail Roper supports the national portfolio with an emphasis on technology-enabled innovation aligning with the foundation’s Smart Cities program. Before joining Knight in March 2019, Roper was the southeast region’s partnerships manager at Google, where she supported negotiations on municipal efforts related to the Google Fiber strategy. In this role, she negotiated contractual and permitting language with public sector clients, and presented large, complex projects to facilitate the implementation of innovative solutions on public property. Roper has an extensive background in information technology. With more than 25 years of experience, she has served as chief information and community officer for the cities of Austin, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Raleigh, North Carolina. In her role in Raleigh, she co-chaired the Research Triangle’s efforts to bring high-speed broadband to the region by coordinating the interests of surrounding communities to create a comprehensive request for a regional gigabyte network. Roper has served as an expert on technology strategy and innovation for governments worldwide, including groups in Spain, in England and at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society. Roper built her career on the belief that technology can have a positive impact on individuals and communities. She founded the Raleigh Digital Connectors Program; in 2009 she secured federal funding to bring broadband access to underserved homes in Raleigh, creating a national model for a youth program that promotes digital literacy and financial and life skills for underserved students. Roper holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the Rockhurst University School of Graduate and Professional Studies and a Certified Government Chief Information Officer certificate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been recognized by Government Technology for her work in technology innovation. Originally from upstate New York, Roper has two adult daughters.

Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe and Chace Morris create work designed to erode the divide between audience and performer, reality and impossible. Together, Sharpe and Morris received a 2018 MAP grant, a 2018 Art Prize Jurors’ Short List Award, a 2018 Frey Foundation award, and a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge grant. Sharpe and Morris are hybrids of their craft, blurring forms into the unexpected. Sharpe has been a Kresge Theater/Film Fellow, a Cave Canem Fellow and a VONA Fellow, and is founder of the Obsidian Blues Social Justice Troupe and the Crossroad Collective. She writes poems that spin into interactive theater, then into meditative mantra and back again. Her one-woman show, “On Becoming Unfukwitable,” navigates her revolutionary healing from sexual assault, using music and interactive performance. Through her bold, vulnerable work, Sharpe etches out a safe space for dynamic breakthroughs not just for herself, but also for the audience. Morris has received the Detroit Institute of Arts’ 2016 Alain Locke Award and has been a Kresge Literary Fellow, a Callaloo Fellow and a two-time Rustbelt Slam champion. His latest poetry project was “You’re Coming With Me,” a poetry/live music experience dissecting gentrification, displacement and survival in Detroit through the lens of Robocop, which earned a 2015 Knight Arts grant. His most recent solo music project, “ONUS Chain” — a hip-hop EP/live visual album about the intimate effects of coping with police brutality and seceding from failing systems — was hailed by Okayplayer as “one of the best protest records of 2016.” Since then, Sharpe and Morris have been quietly planning a G-5 Classified journey blending their powers together.

Anjelica Smith is a native Virginian but now happily calls Brooklyn, New York, home. As corporate partnerships manager at Democracy Works, she focuses on supporting nonpartisan voter engagement activations by America’s leading brands. Smith has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication from Virginia Tech, where she twice served as student body vice president. One of her most memorable student leadership experiences was collaborating with university and local government leaders to bring a polling place to the student center to better serve on-campus voters. Smith previously served as campus outreach lead at Democracy Works, supported communications at the Congressional Budget Office, and was a fellow in the office of the governor of Virginia.

Serving in various roles in information systems, Heather Walker has been employed in health care IT for 18 years. She began her career as a systems operator in 2000 and progressed to PC technician, technical analyst, technical supervisor, IT director and director of IT transformation and enterprise information management (EIM), and most recently AVP of business solutions and EIM for Navicent Health. In 2008, Walker was selected by her peers to receive ORMC’s Stellar Service Award. In 2015, she was appointed as Oconee Regional Health Systems’ HIPAA security officer and received a Lean Six Sigma Certification in health care. Graduating summa cum laude and chosen by the American Association of University Women as the top female graduate, Walker received an Associate of Science degree in business administration from Georgia Military College in 1999. In 2001, graduating summa cum laude, she received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in computer-based information systems from Georgia College & State University, where she also was vice president of the Association of Information Technology Professionals and was selected as outstanding major in information systems. She holds a master’s degree in management information systems from GC&SU. Walker is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Beta Gamma Sigma and Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor societies. While working at ORMC, she also was an adjunct business office technology instructor at Central Georgia Technical College.

Nathaniel L. Wallace joined Knight Foundation in September 2019 with nearly two decades of entrepreneurial and business management experience. He was vice president of operations and co-owner of his international family firm, Communications Professionals Inc. (CPI). There, he created the IT services and staffing arms for the $20 million firm; developed infrastructure to pursue new markets; and led business and partnership development, talent acquisition and growth strategy. As a proud Detroit native, Wallace is deeply motivated by new possibilities for the city and its residents. He is an avid supporter of the local arts and cultural community and a strong advocate for artists of color. He has hosted exhibitions, artist talks, art salons, poetry readings, rap cyphers and myriad art-focused programming in his home. Wallace is president of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Founders Junior Council board, and is also on the board of ArtWorks by Matrix Human Services. Other organizations he has served with include the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program, NEIdeas, Emerging Arts Leaders Detroit Steering Committee, The District Detroit Art Advisory Committee, and Michigan Opera Theatre’s Opera Club. Wallace earned a bachelor’s degree in executive business management from Northwood University in Midland, Michigan.

Susan E. Walters is the senior vice president of the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) responsible for grant programs. Walters joined CETF in 2007 after working as the regional director of community relations for Citibank in Southern California. Prior to Citibank, she ran a consulting practice focused on corporate social responsibility. The firm built strategic partnerships among nonprofit organizations and corporations, in the areas of strategic planning, communications and marketing. Walters has worked in myriad areas ranging from telecommunications policy, disability access to technology and other policy areas with an emphasis on equity. Examples of her work include designing a highly successful technology job training program for low-income adults and youth, creating a brand strategy for a buy-local food campaign and marketing program, and developing programs to close the digital divide. Walters has held executive positions in the private sector with Odwalla and Pacific Bell. Prior to her work in the private sector, she was a senior staff member to Willie L. Brown Jr. during his tenure as speaker of the California Assembly. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Public Policy degree from Claremont Graduate University, and was a Coro Fellow. She serves of the board of directors for CDTech in Los Angeles.