In the Spotlight: Adrianna Tan

We highlight a public interest technologist in every newsletter. This week, we talked to Adrianna Tan, Director of Product Management for San Francisco Digital Services. Subscribe to our newsletter here.

A BETTER TECH: What does public interest technology mean to you?

ADRIANNA TAN: While the jury is still out on whether to call it gov tech, civic tech, public interest technology (many nuances to all the terms), I believe that public interest tech is about all technology we recognize broadly as software, that may comprise efforts by government, vendors, volunteers, open source projects, civilians and academia. It should either serve the public by providing services, or it can help us examine the impact or success of public services.

ABT: What does your work look like, and what have you been working on lately?

ADRIANNA: As the Director of Product Management at San Francisco Digital Services, the City and County of San Francisco’s digital team, I have been working on a slew of work from vaccines to permits to localization and platforms. I’m proud to have recently launched a vaccine service at home, targeted at people for whom English is not their first language, and also to have helped to build the foundations for providing more even multi-lingual language access to City services through the platform work I’ve been slowly working on. It’s also my job to hire and train product people for this team, and I try my best to do so equitably.

ABT: If students are interested in pursuing a career in public interest technology, where might they start?

ADRIANNA: Get involved in community movements, look for internships with organizations on the periphery of civic tech (junior roles in government are painfully rare), get a copy of Cyd Harrell’s “A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide” (link) to get a feel for the lay of the land.