Abhi Nemani

[email protected] | 618.322.2220 | abhinemani.com | medium.com/@abhinemani

EXPERIENCE

Founder, CEO

February 2017 - Present

EthosLabs.us

Serve as a bridge between the public, private, and non-profit sectors to drive collaborative innovation, such as policy reform, technology deployment, and community engagement.
Work with senior government officials to develop new technology strategy for both operations and policy. Former city partners have taken Ethos' recommendations to hire C-level leadership, launch open data programs, and procure better, more modern software.
Consult with startups to find product/market fit; help refine their business models; and connect them with potential hires, partners, investors, and clients. Ethos' startups have closed VC financing rounds, have seen significant growth (>500%) in ARR, and have made successful exits.
Develop open, actionable, and reusable resources, such as job descriptions for tech leadership positions, primers on emerging trends, and case studies, sharing these resources with Ethos' large and growing network of practitioners, GovGeek.club, to highlight, strengthen, and connect the industry.

Civic Technology Lecturer

January 2019 - December 2019

University of Chicago Computational Analysis and Public Policy Program

Developed new course and curriculum on Civic Technology — including best practices, the existing ecosystem, and challenge specific to the industry — for masters students in the Computer Science and Public Policy schools; taught this course to 30+ students, while also supporting their professional development by leveraging my network for companies and governments.
Published course materials — syllabus, reading list, and lecture slides and notes — openly, which dozens of other schools and NGOs internationally have used in their own training programs.

Chief Innovation Officer

January 2016 - February 2017

City of Sacramento Mayor's Office

Developed and launched the city's landmark $10M Innovation and Growth Fund (IGF) to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, which was approved the by city council unanimously.
Created and administered the RAILS $1M grant program—Rapid Acceleration, Innovation, and Leadership in Sacramento—to support local startups enablers, which received over 140 applications, totaling over $17M in grant requests.
Built the Mayor's Office for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, recruited permanent staff (including permanent CIO) and an advisory Mayor's Tech Council of local leaders, and codified policies and budget through City Council.

Chief Data Officer

September 2014 - October 2015

City of Los Angeles Mayor's Office

Led Los Angeles to #1 ranking for US Open Data cities in under one year, by publishing over 400 datasets; earned the Platinum Open Data Certification from international data consortium, WCCD.
Built Mayoral Dashboard, which is used regularly by the Mayor and Senior Staff to increase performance and accountability; the dashboard has saved the city over $180K, and has been freely reused by other cities.
Set up first-of-its-kind city data GeoHub (GIS) to share over 1,000 geospatial datasets more easily internally and externally, and deployed various critical applications atop this platform.
Mobilized the local volunteer community to include 10K+ members that host monthly events and app competitions focused on sustainable innovation; ran largest civic hackathon in the country.
Supported multiple departments—e.g. Personnel and Fire—in digital transformations through trainings and consultations to enhance citizen experience and reduce costs; earned LA the ranking of #1 Digital City.

Co-Executive Director (Interim)

May 2010 - March 2014

Code for America

Previously: Chief of Staff, Director of Strategy & Communications

Helped build, launch, and run international non-profit designed to transform local governments through technology, leading growth, product strategy, and assessment.
Implemented fundraising strategy for a $10M+ budget, including foundation engagement, corporate sponsorship, and individual philanthropy. Managed and grew multi-million dollar grant relationships with Omidyar Network, Google.org, and other major national foundations, and paired charitable contributions with sales revenue from contracts with dozens of governments.
Created groundbreaking technology fellowship program for local governments in 2011, recruiting over 360 applicants for inaugural class, selecting top 20 for three teams that created over 20 civic applications in partnership with 3 cities. Over the next three years, the fellowship expanded to 10 cities per year with 30-35 fellows, building hundreds of civic tools.
Spearheaded development of growth programs: the first-of-its-kind civic startup accelerator, leading to dramatic growth in activity in the space; the Peer Network, a collaborative platform for over 100 government change-agents; and the CfA Brigade, a now 10,000+ member community of volunteer civic technologists.
Launched internationalization strategy of "Code for All" with various partners including the World Bank.
Chaired Code for America Summit, the premier gathering of ~1,000 civic innovators from around the world, leading strategy, editorial, and design, growing attendance 275 percent and revenue 150 percent.
Published Beyond Transparency, an anthology compiling dozens of case studies from civic leaders on open data.
Built policy focus areas (e.g. public health) building product teams designed to develop reusable apps.
Designed branding campaigns featured in the New York Times, Mashable, Gizmodo & Boing Boing.

Manager

September 2006 - April 2010

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

Oversaw 30 student researchers, supervised project work, handled personnel, and coordinated budget of over $50,000 with senior staff, focused on government innovation and transparency research agenda.
Led National Ballot Initiative open data project, researching and cataloging over 900 measures for public access, which led to publication of scholarly book, “Direct Democracy and the Courts,” published by Cambridge University.
Led the Digital Archiving project of 20 student employees to publish hundreds of political documents online, becoming the first digital political library for the state of California.
Developed, researched, and published, Inland Empire Outlook, a unique economic survey of the region, in collaboration with various professors and students; hosted a parallel conference with local government and business leaders.

Product Marketing

June 2009 - August 2009

Google

Led creation of digital strategy for "Gone Google" marketing campaign, conducting marketing research, designing digital assets, and developing reusable online tools, which was featured by AdWeek, Mashable, and VentureBeat; campaign reached over 1M in under 10 days
Developed B2B marketing strategy for a typically consumer product, driving adoption of social media techniques within Google's enterprise marketing team

COMMUNITY & INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT

Coding it Forward (GovTech NGO)

Jan 2020 - Present

Mentor

POLCO (GovTech Startup)

October 2018 - Present

Advisor & Investor

SPIDR Tech (GovTech Startup)

August 2016 - Present

Advisor

CityGro.ws (GovTech Startup)

May 2015 - Present

Advisor & Investor

COMMUNITY & INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT (continued)

Midwest GovTech Meetup

August 2018 - Present

Founder / Lead Organizer

StateMatters (CivicTech NGO)

May 2018 - Present

Advisor

ZenCity (GovTech Startup)

May 2018 - Present

Advisor & Investor

Newsom for California (Governor)

August 2017 - November 2018

Chair, Tech and Innovation Policy Committee

OpenSTL

June 2016 - Present

Co-Founder & Advisor

Data4America (GovTech NGO)

May 2015 - May 2017

Board Member

OpenGov Foundation (GovTech NGO)

May 2014 - May 2017

Board Member / Vice-Chair

HONORS & RECOGNITIONS

University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Mentor of the Year
GovTech 100 (for various startups), Government Technology Magazine
Blair Award for State and Local Government
Partner, Truman National Security Project
Top 10 CDOs to Watch, Technical.ly
Member, Future of Urban Development Initiative of the World Economic Forum
National Fellow, Young Democrats of America
Edward J. Sexton Fellow; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
Harrison Fellow, Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World
Berger Award for Top Student, Claremont McKenna College
All-American Attorney, American College Mock Trial Association
Breakthrough Publication of the Year: Claremont Port Side (Editor-in-Chief), Center for American Progress

Recognition & Honors for Code for America

White House Champions of Change
Government Technology Magazine: Change-makers
2012 MDC Partners & Wired Humanitarian Award
MIT Lynch Award for Urban Affairs
2012 Oxford Internet and Society Award

Recognition & Honors for City of Los Angeles

#1 Open Data City, US Open Data Census
Platinum Open Data Certification, World Council on City Data (WCCD)
#1 Digital City, Government Technology Magazine

PUBLICATIONS

Articles

Dashboards: The Underbelly of the Smart City | University of Missouri Kansas City Law Review (Spring 2017)
Engines of Civic Entrepreneurship | Hacker Noon (Feb 2016)
Small (City) Pieces, Loosely Joined | Medium (July 2014)
7 Tactics for 21st Century Government | Government Magazine (Oct 2013)
Here's what we need for civic tech to flourish in government | Apolitical (December 2018)
GIS Hub Vision | ArcNews (April 2015)
Towards a Code for Africa | World Bank Symposium (Jan 2014)
Restoring Cities as Engines for Opportunity | CityMinded (Sept 2013)
Turning Civic Interest into Action | Government Executive (Aug 2014)
Beyond Transparency: What's Next? | Code for America Press (June 2012)
Government as a Platform | TechCrunch (June 2012)
Accelerating San Francisco | Huffington Post (Jan 2013)

Presentations

TEDxSacramento, “Hack of the Century: Cities”
Federal Communications Summit (Washington DC), “Government is What We Do Together”
Fabric of the City (Paris), “Building an Open Data Community”
National Association of Government Webmasters Annual Conference, "Let's Move Beyond Open Data Portals"
SXSW (Austin, TX), “Hacking for Sustainable Cities”
University of Virginia, “The Politics, Philosophy, and Economics of Civic Tech”
Anchorage Economic Development Annual Summit, “Moneyballing Innovation”
GitHub Universe, “Opensourcing Government”
Big Kansas City, “Disruption as a Public Service”
MAD (Hong Kong), “Civic Startups”
Health DataPalooza (Washington DC), “Core Principles of Open Data”
PDF (NYC), “Digital Inclusion & OpenGov”
Digital Cities (Buenos Aires), “A Tale of Two Cities”
Agile Alliance (Nashville, TN), “The Principles of Agile and of Government”
World Bank (DC), “Spreading Innovation”

EDUCATION

Stanford Graduate School of Business

August 2020 - Present

LEAD Executive Management Program

Claremont McKenna College

August 2006 - May 2010

B.A. Philosophy, Politics & Economics Honors; Magna Cum Laude

Thesis: "The First Freedom: Speech, Corporations, and the Duality of Democratic Citizenship"

Oxford University

Sept 2008 - December 2008

Politics and History (Study Abroad)

Theses: "Churchill's Rhetoric" & "Tocqueville and Social Capital in the 21st Century"