The Tinder Approach to Fixing Our Government

Every couple of years, most of us go to the polls and cast a ballot for the people we want to represent us. But otherwise, how involved are we in making decisions about how our country is governed?

When Beth Noveck went to work at the White House in 2009, she had a vision for making the government less of a bureaucratic monolith that’s literally hidden behind bomb-blast curtains, and making the government more open. She thought that by experimenting with new technology, we could get everyday experts involved in shaping our policies.

Beth Simone Noveck, a professor at NYU Engineering School and the director of the Governance Lab, served in the White House as the first United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer and director of the White House Open Government Initiative (2009-2011). She the author of Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing (Harvard University Press, 2015), and she argues that smart technology can make government more accessible.