Government has historically been challenged in effectively leveraging technology to best serve the people. There are numerous, well-documented cases of public sector mishandling of technology projects, from the very public failed launch of Healthcare.gov to the many unseen, ineffective IT implementations that occur on a daily basis.

A decade ago, a movement of civic hackers — technologists working for good — inside and outside government began to eschew the trappings of Silicon Valley technology culture, instead putting their talents to use to code a better civil society.

In 2009, Jen Pahlka started Code for America, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing a delivery-driven, digital mindset to government. Jen also served as deputy chief technology officer in the Obama Administration and played an instrumental role in the creation of the federal government’s U.S. Digital Service, whose mission it is “to deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.”

Jen talks with The Government We Need about how we all can code a better government.