Chief Data Scientist Patil to Tech Industry: Don’t Just ‘Throw Stones’ at Government

Despite recent recruiting successes by the Obama Administration to woo top technologists to government, it’s no secret there’s been an at-times frosty relationship between the tech industry and Uncle Sam. Administration officials’ stance on privacy and encryption technologies have soured many techies on federal service. Not to mention the popular perception of government as a bureaucratic black hole. But US Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil, a recent Silicon Valley transplant himself, suggested innovative outsiders have a unique opportunity to make their voices heard inside government.

"The really cool thing that I think has happened over the last few years has been the realization that tech policy is just endemic through every single thing we do” in government, Patil said. “Those of us that are technologists out there: It's our job not just to throw stones and say, 'Hey, how come you guys can't do it this way?’” he added. “We have to get in there. We have to embrace the problem. We have to own the problem with them.” The government can handle dissenting opinions and is willing to engage its critics, Patil said. He cited the recent hiring of renowned Princeton computer scientist, Ed Felten -- a noted critic of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance -- to serve as White House deputy chief technology officer under Megan Smith, herself a recent Google transplant.