Jennifer Pahlka Quotations

There is certainly a strong game development community in Texas, centered around Austin, with a significant additional contingency coming over from Dallas.

So few people vote these days, and I think it's partly because they don't feel like the institution really means anything to them. If you want them to vote, give them opportunities to do something else other than vote, to help.

Right now, if you're a talented developer or designer, government is what you go into if you can't get a better job.

I think there is a big disjuncture between what we are served up as consumers and what we are served up as citizens.

We have this idea of bureaucracy in local government, and it's generally things that we're frustrated at. It doesn't work the way we like it to work.

There is a certain generation who have grown up being able to mash up, to tinker with, every system they've ever encountered.

Before I started Code for America, I spent my career around startups. First it was game developers, small teams trying to make hits in a tough business. Then, when I started working on the Web 2.0 events, it was web startups during times of enormous opportunity and investment.

Everything that works on the Internet depends on a lot of people collaborating, but there's also these rules that you see across all the really successful platforms. Many, many, many more people consume the information or benefit from the information than actually contribute the information.

Now, a lot of people have given up on government. And if you're one of those people, I would ask that you reconsider, because things are changing. Politics is not changing; government is changing.

As a society, we haven't spent as much time building the citizen Internet.

It's really remarkable when you think about what we don't like about government, we, the people created. So if we created it, we can also fix it.

In high school, I was sort of friends with the geeks and friends with the socials and everything else and not solidly in one camp. I've always lived on the borders.

If there's one thing government needs desperately, it's the ability to quickly try something, pivot when necessary, and build complex systems by starting with simple systems that work and evolving from there, not the other way around.

If you are really interested in making government work, you should have the experience of working in government.

Cities perform most functions in a very Industrial Age model.

A neighbor is a far better and cheaper alternative to government services.

Our ability to do great things with data will make a real difference in every aspect of our lives,

You might not think of something like TurboTax as a civic venture, but that product took a confusing interface to a government process and made it simpler and easier to use for citizens.

Government is supposed to be about how we do things together, and we can do that much more together if we use technology smartly right now.

[The Internet generation is] not fighting that battle about who gets to speak; they all get to speak.

We have to make bureaucracy sexy.

If you dont tolerate any risk, you can never innovate.

When one neighbor helps another, we strengthen our communities.

When there are more males in the industry to begin with, it just has a more male feel, and that pushes the girls away.

We cant do without government, but we do need it to be more effective.

Now, a lot of people have given up on government. And if youre one of those people, I would ask that you reconsider, because things are changing. Politics is not changing; government is changing.

We say that word [bureaucracy] with such contempt. But it's that contempt that keeps this thing that we own and we pay for as something that's working against us.

A lot of [bureaucratic] rules were created a long time ago when there were different challenges, and they are now causing negative side effects.

Government is like a vast ocean and politics is the six-inch layer on top.

Are we just going to be a crowd of voices, or are we going to be a crowd of hands?

We're not going to fix government until we fix citizenship.

Government technology processes are mind-boggling long and complicated. A procurement process alone is typically two years, and that doesn't account for the time required to actually build the product.