Shauna Nep is the director of community and innovation for the Goldhirsh Foundation, the organization behind LA2050 (read: It’s her job to seek out and connect Angelenos who do cool, forward-thinking things to benefit the greater good.) We asked her who’s on her radar now:
“Abhi Nemani, the new chief data officer for L.A. I met Abhi about a year ago, when he was working as the interim director of Code for America. If you’re not familiar with it, Code for America is like Teach for America, except instead of placing new graduates in low performing schools, they place hackers and developers in city government with the goal of helping governments create tech solutions to civic problems, like internal processes or how to connect with citizens. The point is to treat the city as a start up. Now Abhi’s job is to take the lessons he learned with Code for America and to make L.A. a data-friendly city, and to come up with a strategy to turn L.A. into a hub for civic innovation. If you ask me, Abhi’s hiring is the moment when all the talk that’s been building about L.A. being on the verge of something becomes a reality. Oh yeah, and he’s 25.”
