There is incredible potential in collaboration between the City and the tech community that is coupled with the challenges of differing cultures: the tech sector succeeds in deploying innovation and disrupting the status quo while the City is traditionally mired in bureaucracy.

Within an appropriate framework of open dialog and acceptance of risk, the city’s understanding of the depth and breadth of existing linkages within our community can inform untold reaches by our tech community. I’ve had the good fortune to participate in exciting discussions of this type, for example to address advanced networking for disaster response. As mayor, I will foster these relationships.

The City’s Innovation Office, which I pushed for as a Council Member, is one vehicle for these discussions, but we should be open to a broad range of avenues. Working together more closely, we can leverage what the City and the tech industry can be.