G.T. Bynum is the 40th mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma. In this Q&A, he shares lessons learned and advice for other innovators working on seemingly intractable problems. You come from a long line of mayors — what did you learn as a child or young adult that made you want to take on the role yourself?

Ian Bassin is the executive director of Protect Democracy. In our Q&A, he explains how his team stays united and strong while working on some of the toughest problems facing government today. Could tell our readers a little bit more about your work at Protect Democracy? How did you come to step into this leadership

In this interview, Leah Greenberg of Indivisible tells us how she and her team turned a volunteer army into an effective nonprofit entity—one that lets people tap into their own creativity, leadership, and determination. Leah Greenberg is the co-executive director of Indivisible. Can you tell us a little bit about your role, and your journey to

For this Q&A, we reached out to the PHL Service Design Studio at the City of Philadelphia. Director Liana Dragoman shared the studio’s origins, structure, and perspective on improving people’s experiences of government.  Q: Could you tell us about your team’s origin story? In the period of 2009 to 2014, public interest technologists and designers started

Matthew McAllister is a founding member of the Colorado Digital Service. By October, we’d spent countless hours in coffee meetings, video chats, and speaking at events. We were making the case to decisionmakers —including the governor—that if given the right opportunity, technologists across Colorado would raise their hands to be part of our work in

Lane Becker was formerly the Director of 10x Investments for the General Services Administration and the Director of Products and Startups for Code for America. He’s currently launching The Public Interesting, a strategic consultancy reimagining today’s public institutions for tomorrow’s world.  ~ The US government is a gigantic, federated behemoth, with millions of people across

Dr. David Lagrew is an OB-GYN and founding member of the CMQCC.  How did the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative get started?  In 2005 the state [of California] noticed that our maternal mortality rate was increasing. So CMQCC was formed in 2006 with the intent to lower maternal mortality in the state of California, funded

Sonia Sarkar was previously the Chief Policy and Engagement Officer for the Baltimore City Health Department. Fifteen years ago, I volunteered at clinics in East and West Baltimore. There, the patients I met taught me that the best medicine in the world can only go so far if you have no food to take it

For Elliot, a veteran who was weathering a difficult transition back to civilian life, it wasn’t just one problem that was holding him back. It was a combination of severe anxiety, money troubles, and failed plans that had left him feel hopeless. He began to  contemplate suicide when, he says, “all my plans from A