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Megan Smith | |
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| 3rdChief Technology Officer of the United States | |
| In office September 4, 2014 – January 20, 2017 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Todd Park |
| Succeeded by | Michael Kratsios |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1964-10-21)October 21, 1964 (age 61) |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS,MS) |
Megan J. Smith (born October 21, 1964)[1] is an American engineer and technologist. She was the thirdChief Technology Officer of the United States (U.S. CTO) and Assistant to the President, serving under PresidentBarack Obama. She was previously a vice president atGoogle, leading new business development and early-stage partnerships across Google's global engineering and product teams atGoogle for nine years, was general manager ofGoogle.org,[2] a vice president briefly atGoogle[x] where she co-createdSolve for X and WomenTechmakers,[3] is the formerCEO ofPlanet Out and worked as an engineer on early smartphones atGeneral Magic.[4][5] She serves on the boards ofMIT[6] andVital Voices, was a member of theUSAID Advisory Committee on Voluntary Aid[7] and co-founded theMalala Fund.[8][9] On September 4, 2014, she was named as the third (and first female) U.S. CTO, succeedingTodd Park,[10][11] and serving until January, 2017.[12] Smith is the CEO and Founder of shift7.
Smith grew up inBuffalo, New York, andFort Erie, Ontario,[13][circular reference] and spent many summers at theChautauqua Institution inChautauqua, New York, where her mother, Joan Aspell Smith, was director of the Chautauqua Children's School.[14] Smith graduated fromCity Honors School in 1982.[15] She went on to receive herS.B. in 1986 and anS.M. in 1988, both in mechanical engineering, fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology, and completed her master's thesis work at theMIT Media Lab. She was a member of the MIT student team that designed, built and raced a solar car 2000 miles across theAustralianoutback in the first cross-continental solar car race.[16]
Following MIT, Smith worked at a variety of start-ups, includingApple inTokyo andGeneral Magic located inMountain View, California, as product design lead on nascent smartphone technologies[17] before she got involved with the launch ofPlanet Out in 1995. She joined formally in 1996 as COO and from 1998 she was Planet Out's Chief Executive Officer, where she expanded partnerships, built new business models, grew revenue and global users, raised venture funding, and later presided over that company's merger withGay.com.[18][19]
In 2003, she joined Google,[20] where she rose to the vice president of newbusiness development, leading early-stage partnerships, pilot explorations and technology licensing across Google's global engineering and product teams. She led many early acquisitions, includingKeyhole (Google Earth), Where2Tech (Google Maps), andPicasa, and later also took over as general manager of Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org.[21] Smith co-created and co-hosted Google'sSolve for X solution acceleration programs 2012–14.[22] In 2012, she started Google's "Women Techmakers" diversity initiative to expand visibility, community and resources for technical women globally.[23]
In 2014, she left Google to become the 3rd U.S. CTO. In that role, Smith recruited top tech talent to serve across government collaborating on pressing issues, from AI, data science and open source, to inclusive economic growth, entrepreneurship, structural inequalities, government tech innovation capacity, STEM/STEAM engagement, workforce development, and criminal justice reform. Her teams focused on broad capacity building by co-creating all-hands-on-deck initiatives, including the public-private program TechHire, the Computer Science for All initiative, and the Image of STEM campaigns.[24] In addition, she launched the campaign to #FindtheSentiments, which is an effort to find theDeclaration of Sentiments, a piece of history from theSeneca Falls Convention.[25][26] After leaving the White House in 2017, Smith became CEO and Founder of shift7 which works on tech-forward, inclusive innovation for faster impact on systemic economic, social, and environmental challenges.[27] At shift7, the team continued co-creating the United Nations Solutions Summit and other programs; in 2017 Smith helped launch Tech Jobs Tour, aimed at promoting diversity in the technological sector, traveling to over 20 U.S. cities to help empower and connect local talent to their nascent tech sectors.[28] Smith serves on the board ofMIT,[29]Vital Voices,LA2028, Think of Us as well as on the advisory boards for theMIT Media Lab and theAlgorithmic Justice League. Additionally, she serves on the global Advisory Council forCFK Africa, a leading NGO working in Kenyan informal settlements.[30] She is also a member of the Award Selection Committee for the distinguished Carroll L. Wilson Award at MIT.[31] Smith has contributed to a broad range of engineering projects, including a bicycle lock,[32] space station construction program, and solar cookstoves.[33]
She is an active proponent ofSTEM education and innovation.[34]
Her appeal for technologists to work in public service at the annualGrace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing inspired severalHarvard University students to create the national non-profit organizationCoding it Forward which creates data science and technology internship program for undergraduate and graduate students inUnited States federal agencies.[35]
Smith was elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering in 2017 for leading technological innovation teams and efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in STEM industries both nationally and globally, and elected a member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations in 2018.
Smith married technology columnistKara Swisher inMarin County in 1999 at a time when same-sex marriage was not legal in California.[47][48] They had additional legal wedding ceremonies in 2003 in Niagara Falls, Canada, in 2004 as part of theSan Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings, and again in San Francisco, California in November 2008 in advance ofCalifornia Proposition 8, which declared same-sex marriages invalid in California.[48] Smith and Swisher have two sons.[16][18][49][50] They separated in 2014,[47] and were divorced as of 2017[update].[51]
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