Last Tuesday, the White House honored 14 individuals as “Open Government and Civic Hacking Champions of Change,” including four Californians.
The recipients of the award were recognized for their advocacy of technology to help their community and government.
The California winners were Steve Spiker, Director of Research and Technology at the Urban Strategies Council in Moraga, Cal.; Craig Michael Lie Njie, CEO of Kismet World Wide Consulting in Mountain View; Caitria O’Neill, co-founder of Recovers in San Francisco; and Gerrie Schipske, councilwoman on the Long Beach City Council.
Spiker and Schipske received the award for their open data efforts in their respective jobs. Lie was honored for his privacy and security education efforts and received his name as an honorarium for his Peace Corps work in The Gambia, West Africa setting up a Bachelor of Computer Science degree at the University of The Gambia. O’Neill was honored for helping to prepare California to recover technologically from a disaster.
