GSA’s Carnahan calls women in tech to public service
General Services Administration leader Robin Carnahan has called women working in the technology industry to public service during a speech in which she described the current gender balance of technologists in the federal government as “not good enough.”
Speaking Thursday at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, the administrator encouraged attendees to consider applying to the newfound U.S. Digital Corps and underscored the myriad opportunities for purposeful work within the federal government.
Women currently make up less than one-quarter of all technologists working in the federal government.
“The problems we face today are big, they didn’t materialize overnight and it’s going to take your creativity, your fresh set of eyes, and your technical skills to reimagine the future and then build the solutions that the American people deserve,” said Carnahan.
Late last month the White House launched the U.S. Digital Corps, which is a two-year fellowship designed to place early-career software engineers, data scientists and other technologists at federal agencies.
Carnahan was installed as the administrator of GSA by the Biden administration earlier this year. She founded and led the state and local government practice at 18F, GSA‘s tech consultancy, from 2016 to 2020, having previously been Missouri’s secretary of state.
Most recently, Carnahan co-founded the State Software Collaborative as a fellow at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center.
