Megan J. Smith (born October 21, 1964) is an American engineer and technologist. She was the third

Chief Technology Officer of the United States The United States Chief Technology Officer (US CTO) is an official in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The U.S. CTO helps the President and their team harness the power of data, innovation and technology on behalf of the American people ...

(U.S. CTO) and Assistant to the President, serving under President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

. She was previously a vice president at

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, leading new business development and early-stage partnerships across Google's global engineering and product teams at

for nine years, was general manager of

Google.org Google.org, founded in October 2005, is the charitable arm of Google, a multinational technology company. The organization has committed roughly US$100 million in investments and grants to nonprofits annually. The organization is noted for se ...

, a vice president briefly at Google where she co-created WomenTechmakers, is the former CEO of

Planet Out PlanetOut, Inc. is an online media company or entertainment company exclusively targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) demographic. Originally founded as an early internet-based media company by Tom Reilly in 1995, it opera ...

and worked as an engineer on early smartphones at

General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to " USB, software modems, small touchscreens, to ...

. She serves on the boards of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

and

Vital Voices Vital Voices Global Partnership is an American international, 501(c)(3), non-profit, non-governmental organization that works with women leaders in the areas of economic empowerment, women's political participation, and human rights. The organiz ...

, was a member of the

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

Advisory Committee on Voluntary Aid and co-founded the

Malala Fund Malala Fund is an international, non-profit organization that advocates for girls' education. It was co-founded by Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and her father, Ziauddin. T ...

. Today Smith is the CEO and Founder of shift7. On September 4, 2014, she was named as the third (and first female) U.S. CTO, succeeding

Todd Park Todd Park is a Korean American entrepreneur and government executive. He served as Chief Technology Officer of the United States and technology advisor for U.S. President Barack Obama. Early life and education Park was born in 1973 in Salt La ...

, and serving until January, 2017.

Early life and education

Smith grew up in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

, and Fort Erie, Ontario, and spent many summers at the

Chautauqua Institution The Chautauqua Institution ( ) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education center and summer resort for adults and youth located on in Chautauqua, New York, northwest of Jamestown in the Western Southern Tier of New York State. Established in 1874, the ...

Chautauqua, New York Chautauqua ( ) is a town and lake resort community in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 4,017 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Chautauqua Lake. It is the home of the Chautauqua Institution and the birthplace ...

, where her mother, Joan Aspell Smith, was director of the Chautauqua Children's School. Smith graduated from City Honors School in 1982. She went on to receive her S.B. in 1986 and an S.M. in 1988, both in mechanical engineering, from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, and completed her Master's thesis work at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

. She was a member of the MIT student team that designed, built and raced a solar car 2000 miles across the Australian outback in the first cross-continental solar car race.

Career

Following MIT, Smith worked at a variety of start-ups, including

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

and

located in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

, as product design lead on nascent smartphone technologies before she got involved with the launch of

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 with

Gay.com Gay.com was a chat, personals, and social networking website catering to the LGBT community. The site was a digital brand of Here Media Inc. In addition to community features, the site featured LGBT-related news and features. As of September ...

. In 2003, she joined Google, where she rose to the vice president of new business development, leading early-stage partnerships, pilot explorations and technology licensing across Google's global engineering and product teams. She led many early acquisitions, including

Keyhole A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object (such as a key, keycard, fingerprint, RFID card, security token or coin), by supplying secret information (such as a number or letter permutation or pas ...

(Google Earth), Where2Tech (Google Maps), and

Picasa Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape (which at that time was incubated by ...

, and later also took over as general manager of Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org. Smith co-created and co-hosted Google's

Solve for X Solve for X was a community solution engagement project and think tank-like event launched by Google to encourage collaboration, solve global issues and support innovators. The "X" in the title represents a remedy someone or a team is already pu ...

solution acceleration programs 2012-14. In 2012, she started Google's "Women Techmakers" diversity initiative to expand visibility, community and resources for technical women globally. 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. In addition, she launched the campaign to #FindtheSentiments, which is an effort to find the

Declaration of Sentiments The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men—100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention to be organized by women. Held in Sen ...

, a piece of history from the

Seneca Falls Convention The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman".Wellman, 2004, p. 189 Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the tow ...

. 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. 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. Smith serves on the board of

, LA2028, Think of Us as well as on the advisory boards for the

and the

Algorithmic Justice League The Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) is a digital advocacy non-profit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 2016 by computer scientist Joy Buolamwini, the AJL uses research, artwork, and policy advocacy to increase societal ...

. She is also a member of the Award Selection Committee for the distinguished Carroll L. Wilson Award at MIT. Smith has contributed to a broad range of engineering projects, including a bicycle lock, space station construction program, and solar cookstoves. She is an active proponent of STEM education and innovation. Her appeal for technologists to work in public service at the annual

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. The celebra ...

inspired several

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

students to create the national non-profit organization

Coding it Forward Coding it Forward is an American 501c3 non-profit organization with the goal of building a talent pipeline into civic tech, primarily through creating and marketing data science and technology internships in federal government agencies for under ...

which creates data science and technology internship program for undergraduate and graduate students in

United States federal agencies Legislative definitions of a federal agency are varied, and even contradictory. The official '' United States Government Manual'' offers no definition. While the Administrative Procedure Act definition of "agency" applies to most executive branc ...

. Smith was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

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 the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.

Recognition

* World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2001, 2002 * Listed by '' Out'' magazine in 2012 and 2013, as one of the 50 most powerful

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

people in the United States *

Reuters Digital Vision Program Reuters Digital Vision Program (RDVP) was an academic program. History RDVP was funded by the Reuters Foundation and encouraged innovative applications of computing and communications in the developing world. Located at Stanford University's ...

Fellow at Stanford, 2003-2004 * Top 25 Women on the Web, 2000 * ''Upside Magazine'' 100 Digital Elite, 1999 and 2000 * ''Advertising Age'' i.20, 1999 * GLAAD Interactive Media Award for Internet Leadership, 1999 * Charging Buffalo Award, 2015 * Matrix Hall of Fame, 2015 *Business Insider 23 Most Powerful LGBTQ+ People in Tech, 2019

Personal life

Smith married technology columnist Kara Swisher in Marin County in 1999 (before same-sex marriage was legal in California). They have two sons, Louis and Alexander, and are divorced .

References

External links