The Pipeline Is the Point: Making Civic Tech Work Globally

Talent is everywhere—but the systems to support it aren’t.
To ensure technology serves democracy, we must invest in civic tech ecosystems around the world.

Today, I had a conversation with a Korean machine learning engineer working in the UK. She had a clear sense of the kind of public impact she wanted to create—using her skills for projects with social value and long-term civic purpose. Her story reminded me of my mentor at Code for America, who spent over a decade at Google and other tech companies before shifting into public interest work. They showed me that world-class technical skill can be redirected toward systems that serve the public. People like this are everywhere. What’s often missing is the infrastructure to support them.

In the U.S., that infrastructure is slowly taking shape. While federal initiatives like 18F (now defunct) and the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) have lost momentum, a decentralized civic tech ecosystem has emerged. State and local initiatives like California’s Office of Data and Innovation, New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics, and the Colorado Digital Service embed technologists into government to modernize services. In the AI space, the GovAI Coalition—founded by the City of San José—helps public agencies promote ethical, transparent AI use by providing practical governance tools.

A growing ecosystem of organizations is advancing civic tech through both service delivery and talent development. Code for America, Nava, and Propel deliver user-centered public services. Coding It Forward and the Partnership for Public Service support early-career technologists entering government. The Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) connects more than 50 universities training students at the intersection of technology and public purpose. These initiatives are supported by funders like the Knight, Hewlett, Ford, MacArthur, Gates, Walmart, and Schmidt Futures foundations.

But this kind of infrastructure is still rare outside the U.S. In South Korea, for example, there is no comparable ecosystem of civic tech organizations, no clear pathway into government tech work, and no long-term institutional support. The talent exists. The public need is obvious. But the platform to bring them together is missing.

Even when civic tech projects emerge in Korea, they tend to be crisis-driven and temporary. During the early months of COVID-19, volunteer technologists built a map-based tool that helped people find nearby stores with available masks—allowing them to avoid long lines in the cold.

These contributions were important, but these efforts were largely volunteer-driven and short-term. Civic tech in Korea remains framed as emergency response, not as a sustainable career path embedded in institutions and policy.

This lack of infrastructure shaped my own trajectory. Nearly two decades ago, I stumbled upon MIT OpenCourseWare while studying abroad in Hong Kong. Inspired, I launched a similar project in Korea by partnering with Professor Gyu-Tae Kim at Korea University to build an open learning platform.

That project introduced me to the global open knowledge movement and led me to become active in Creative Commons Korea, where I joined others working to make digital public infrastructure more accessible and equitable. Around the same time, I began writing as a tech journalist and op-ed contributor, publishing a series of columns on the social impacts of technology that later became the foundation of several books. My work in this space eventually led to an invitation from Naver—the largest internet company in Korea, often called the “Korean Google”—to serve on its user service advisory board as both the youngest member and the only college student.

Yet despite this early work, I struggled to find a career path that sustained mission-driven, public interest technology. I briefly worked at a startup, but it didn’t lead to the kind of impact I was seeking. I decided to pursue a PhD in the U.S., supported by a Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies fellowship, with the goal of developing strong research skills and applying them to solve public problems. At Berkeley, I trained as both a political scientist and data scientist, combining theory, data, and computation to better understand—and help address—systems of inequality.

In 2020, I co-organized the Bay Area site of the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science with the theme of connecting computational social scientists and Bay Area nonprofit organizations, including Code for America. Since then, I have closely followed their work: partnering with governments, applying human-centered design, and building digital tools to improve access to the safety net.

When I formally joined Code for America in 2023 as a data scientist, it felt like a return to where this journey had started—at the intersection of technology, policy, and social equity.

The Pipeline Still Needs Building

That same year, while working at Code for America, I published a book in Korea: We Need Civic Data: How Public Data Can Fail Us — and How It Can Build a More Just Society (Sejong Books). It was the first book in Korean to explore civic data as a foundation for more equitable and responsive government. Drawing on examples from Korea and the U.S., the book outlines how data systems shape access to services—and how we can redesign them to serve the public good. I wrote it to help build the civic tech ecosystem in Korea. But there’s still a long way to go.

My path has taken me from open education in Korea to safety net service delivery in the U.S. But one question continues to guide me: how do we build a digital future rooted in public values?

In the U.S., we are beginning to see some answers. There are people, institutions, and entry points for technologists who want to serve the public. But in many countries, including my home country, these pathways are still missing. Many civic-minded technologists must stitch together their own careers—or leave. I’m not the only Korean who left the country to build a career in civic tech. Another is Wonyoung So, a former colleague from Korea’s public tech scene who is now a PhD candidate at MIT. He began his career in civic tech by co-founding a creative crowdfunding platform and curating citizen data projects in Seoul. Today, he studies how algorithms and AI reinforce housing inequality in the U.S.

As global concern grows over the power of technology—from misinformation and surveillance to algorithmic harm—we must take deliberate steps to steer it in a more democratic, inclusive, and accountable direction. Achieving that goal requires many more people to engage in civic tech, especially from diverse communities, regions, and countries. Only then can we build a future that is truly just and global.

To build a global civic tech ecosystem, we can begin with a few concrete steps.

First, we need to invest in local civic tech hubs that connect universities, nonprofits, and government agencies in sustained collaboration. The U.S. offers one example: initiatives like the Digital Service at the federal and local levels have demonstrated the value of embedding technical expertise within government.

Second, we should create more international fellowships, internships, and exchange programs—so technologists can not only serve beyond their borders but also bring back lessons that enrich their home institutions. Even in the U.S., there is much to learn from abroad. The U.S. Digital Service itself was inspired by the UK’s Government Digital Service, and countries like Taiwan have pioneered civic tech models centered on transparency, open-source collaboration, and participatory governance.

Finally, we need to strengthen the connective tissue between these efforts. A global alliance of civic tech hubs could offer shared principles, ethical guidelines, and open standards. By investing in this distributed infrastructure, we can make civic tech more resilient, effective, and globally responsive.

Building a global pipeline for civic tech isn’t just about training individuals—it’s about creating the conditions that make their work possible, valued, and enduring. That means treating infrastructure, institutions, and community not as afterthoughts, but as the foundation for lasting impact. If we want a future where technology serves democracy, we must invest in that pipeline—everywhere.