Simone Noveck: Honorary Steward, March 2020

by SF Team, 20 September 2019

The Shuttleworth Foundation is thrilled to announce Beth Simone Noveck as our new Honorary Steward.

Beth is director of The GovLab, where she advises public institutions and public entrepreneurs on improving people’s lives through better governance with technology. She is also a professor at the Technology, Culture and Society department of New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, and a Senior Fellow at Rutgers University and the Yale Law School Information Society Project.

Beth has been a hugely influential voice in evolving governmental thinking to break away from closed bureaucracies and move towards open data and open innovation. In 2009, she founded the White House Open Government Initiative under Barack Obama which spearheaded open data policy; two years later she was named senior advisor to UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Today, she serves as Chief Innovation Officer for the State of New Jersey and as an advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel on digital government. She is also the author of several books, including Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger and Citizens More Powerful, and Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing.

Beth’s thinking aligns with our philosophy that open institutions enable stronger democracies, fairer societies, and increased economic benefits. And her work coaching public entrepreneurs - passionate individuals with the potential to make a world-changing idea a practical reality - is common in spirit with our fellowship programme.

We are most excited to be working with Beth because her alternative expertise, knowledge and thinking give us an opportunity to see our process through a different lens, especially important as our experiment in the world moves into new territory. Three current fellows - Alasdair Davies, Anasuya Sengupta and Tarek Loubani - will be moving on to alumni status in March this year, and Beth’s selection will play a significant role in where our focus and direction lies next.

We look forward to announcing Beth’s choices for our next cohort of changemakers, who will have the opportunity to apply openness to ambitious ideas and in innovative ways. We believe their contributions, experiences and learning will greatly benefit us, the Shuttleworth community, and the wider world. Thank you, Beth!