Modernizing Government: Open Data, Innovation & the Future of AI with Natalia Olson | Shekhar Natarajan

Tomorrow, Today

In this 50th episode of Tomorrow Today, Shekhar Natarajan interviews Natalia Olson, former White House innovation advisor under President Ob

Key takeaways

• Early exposure to global poverty and diverse cultures instilled a deep sense of social responsibility and adaptability.
• Government innovation requires collaboration across disciplines—urban planning, finance, technology—and citizen involvement.

Main topics

• Global upbringing and its impact on innovation mindset
• Open data and government transparency

Notable quotes

"I live in the world of logistics, which is a bunch of irrational people."

Conclusion

Natalia Olson's journey underscores that innovation in government stem

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) I can create a party made of political agents that can use your job ten times better. Speaker 2 (0:10) I live in the world of logistics, which is a bunch of irrational people. I Speaker 1 (0:21) don't think that you can run government as a business. We have an example right now of that doesn't work. Speaker 2 (0:34) Feels like the world has gotten even more polarized and more fragmented. Do you think they can ever like glue them back together? Speaker 1 (0:46) Brian, folks from the blockchain community, the Department of Justice started using it. Speaker 2 (1:19) Welcome to yet another episode of Tomorrow Today with Shekhar Natarajan. This is our 50th episode. Natalie Olson, she's a celebrity. What makes this very, very special is she used to be Obama's innovation advisor and also like managing very complex governmental policies and initiatives. Amazing person. And as I'm getting to know her, You know, it's been really refreshing to hear some of the thoughts. I want to understand like, you know, the whole, you know, shift of open data and other things that you guys were like so instrumental building and kind of unpack your journey, your personal life along with a professional career and what you're doing now and want to spend like the rest of two hours doing that. Speaker 1 (2:18) I don't know. So that's a fun, fun, fun ways to, to get into the conversation. Speaker 2 (2:22) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you're a Latina. Yeah. And, and basically like, you know, and then you grew up in the United States. Around the world. And around the world. And you were sharing a little bit about the family and like, you know, that your dad was building like embassies around the world. So tell me, it looks like government and representation of government is in your blood. And so how did your early formative years create who you are as a person? Speaker 1 (3:02) Well, I think what's important is the values of your family. And I always talk about my parents because my mom's Honduran-American, my father is Norwegian-American. And, you know, only in the U.S. you can have such a diverse school getting together. But more than anything, it was the wonderful experience of my parents making us travel around the world. living in different countries, especially in countries that, you know, there was a lot of poverty. And we were, my mother made a point of us really understanding the country, understanding that, you know, that we were very fortunate by having just a home and education. And my mother in Mexico City, which is 25 million people, She took us to the biggest landfill. It's a huge amount of the trash and people, there's an entire village built out of trash. And she would say, this is how people live. And you're so fortunate. And if you don't work hard enough, if you don't understand the value of work, I love working, then this is what happens. And we're very fortunate, so therefore we had to lend a hand. We always had to help people. You don't, you know, remember where it's come from. Speaker 2 (4:29) It's a worthwhile Speaker 1 (4:29) part of your Speaker 2 (4:30) life. Speaker 1 (4:30) Yeah, yeah, this is really important. And both of my parents are just very giving and taught us good things. How did your father meet your mom? In the Peace Corps. So my father is an architect, and he went down to Honduras, and he built schools. And my mom was a young lawyer there and they got married and, you know, still together. My father comes next week. Speaker 2 (5:03) Shocked the parents. Speaker 1 (5:07) So, so yeah. And then, you know, we went back to, we went to the U.S. We actually, you know, my dad has his own little company. The government, this was interesting. After the two bombings in Africa, there were two U.S. embassies there. The U.S. government decided, when I was a kid, decided that we were going to rebuild all of our embassies. And my father was the only American architect that spoke Spanish well, had experience in LATAM. And so they hired him and said, you're going to go and build these. embassies across Latin America. So I grew up in Latin, in many countries, you know, from Kingston, Jamaica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras. And so it's that experience, I think, that gets you to really understand what are the good things in life for you as a kid. And moving around helps you really adapt. You have to adapt really quickly. Because you had to make every, you know, three years, you had to make new friends, you had to understand the city, understand the different cultures. Because I tell people that Venezuela and Mexico are very different. They all speak Spanish, but very different histories, different ways of doing things. And that's exciting. And so we really quickly adapted. And I think that has made me a stronger person, I think. And one that takes risks. Because I think that it's a risk to just... pop somewhere else and show up. So yeah. Speaker 2 (6:44) So then like, you know, what was, what's your background, like your education and like, how did it actually like prepare you for the, the role that you were getting into or? Speaker 1 (6:57) Well, you know, um, I originally wanted to study, um, it's called, it was a new type of engineering. It was urban systems engineering. Because I had seen a lot of the poverty and development and underdevelopment, I noticed there was this amazing plant that would take garbage and turn it into energy. And I thought that was the best thing in the world back in the late 80s. And I'm like, wow, we need this everywhere. This is something. Speaker 1 (7:36) And then I switched to economics because I thought from the policy perspective, I can make more of a difference because I was still moving very slow. And then I went and worked for the State Department in Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland. So I was based in Budapest. And this was when NATO, when the three exceeding countries were coming into the new club, you know, after communism. Very interesting time in Central Eastern Europe. And then I decided I am going to, you know, education is really important. And that's the only thing my parents have said. And that's the only thing they've given us. They're like, any inheritance that you have is education. That will pay for any, you know, but nothing else. So it's important that you take that education and you can transfer that knowledge and apply it. And so I went and worked, did a master's in regional. and urban planning. So the regional part is really important because we have to think of the region, not just of the city. And then I went and did a double MBA because I realized we need money to do big plans for the next 50, 100 years. And so I really got into the financial part, into the logistics and transportation and infrastructure. And no one else wanted to do in my studios the transportation part of it. And I thought, this is how you move the world. You know, you move the world. That's why, like, someone Speaker 2 (9:07) talks transportation. I'm so excited. Speaker 1 (9:11) So, yeah. And so I decided, okay, let's study and apply it. Study and apply it. You always have to be learning. And be able to really think. And urban planning is wonderful from a theoretical perspective. And it's great plans. But it needs the action-driven part of it. So it's important to plan for the next 50, 100 years. But many times, you know, as you know, our policies and our budgets don't accommodate that. And people have to understand. that the citizens are at the center, that the citizens should be involved in all this planning. And so I think that what drove me to do the business side of things was citizens, their taxpayer money is being used for this, but they're not being asked. This is how I brought technology into this conversation because it was all back then in design, figuring out how to build the scenario, the visual part of things. Speaker 1 (10:16) And so I really just, I think, learning and taking every opportunity to learn from other people. And so I pushed a lot of our urban planning students and our real estate finance students to work together. So the first class that I went to in real estate at the Wharton said, the urban planner is the enemy of the real estate. Speaker 2 (10:40) I was Speaker 1 (10:41) like, excuse me? Speaker 1 (10:44) And so it was wonderful to have professors and people that believe in you. And they're like, no, you're right. You have to work together. So it's always been that collaborative. And I'm very pushy. I'm a charming nagger. Speaker 2 (11:00) No, no, no. I think like you're a beautiful person. So, boy, like you had a range of experiences when it comes to education, right? Like, you know, urban planning. MBA and then logistics and regional urban planning, finance, you know, bringing all of that together. So why did you not go into strategy consulting or capital, like, you know, venture capital planning? Because Speaker 1 (11:37) that's such a... Speaker 2 (11:39) traditional route for a Wharton graduate. Speaker 1 (11:41) Or Speaker 2 (11:42) go to the big four, McKinsey and Bain. Speaker 1 (11:48) Yeah, all those big four. It's not exciting. I mean, I just... You didn't like Speaker 2 (11:53) it, huh? No. Speaker 1 (11:55) No, and I was... It just didn't trigger something for me. I really wanted to understand and help the financial part of the community, you know. So a lot of my colleagues went to the big companies and that's great experience. It's excellent experience. They do it for two years and you go into another big company and so on. But I thought, okay, I can do more if I build something myself as well. And then you create an opportunity for others to build and you become a role model. I think one thing that my parents always said. You have to be an example and an example because there's so many people that don't have what you have and, and being a role model and helping people. So when I started my company, my first company out of, out of, out of the masters, people were like, this is never going to work. I will have to, it has to work. At least the idea is planted that we can look at green economy, that we can look at technology for good, for the greater good. And now this is, wow, this was 2005 before we were using blackberries and not even that. And so the first application comes out and it was all in Philadelphia. And, you know, on transportation and logistics and just the fact that buses, the buses were, you know, I want to use public infrastructure. I want to use the bus and the metro. Highly underutilized because of something so simple as they were so late all the time. Speaker 2 (13:42) And Speaker 1 (13:42) I worked for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which in the U.S. is where the funding goes through for all transportation dollars. And for the first time, they realized that the whole air quality was not only based on shipping and rail. It was literally based on access to mobility, access to where you would have to get buses and metros and everything to reduce automobile commuting and so on. And so we're really using the data in the best way possible to alleviate air quality problems. And so there was a good policy that said, okay, region, New Jersey, you know, and Pennsylvania, you won't get any transportation dollars if you don't create projects to minimize and to reduce the bad things and the air quality. Speaker 2 (14:44) So you're not one of those. Like let's kill sustainability person. Speaker 1 (14:48) And what? Speaker 2 (14:58) Like I used to have like someone who used to work with me in PepsiCo, you know, like, and like I could hear like that rumbling even then, right? This is like 2007 and 8. And I used to, because I used to work in Pepsi, like I lived in Dan Boring, which is Danbury. And then in Richfield. Oh Speaker 1 (15:26) boy. Speaker 2 (15:26) Yeah. And so a lot of interesting people and they would say like, you know, what climate change? It's snowing more. Speaker 1 (15:40) And Speaker 2 (15:40) this was 2007 and 8. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm sitting and listening to them. I'm like, okay, we're going to have trouble in the future. Because like, you know, like these people who basically think climate change is not real. You know, there are more and more probably out there. Their voices are very silent. you know, there's going to be some sort of renaissance moment, which is going to happen. And then, yes, we did have one. So it was interesting. Well, believe Speaker 1 (16:11) me, it's so I, you know, we mentioned earlier, those people that have an influence in you and can make you pivot or meet as certain crossroads. It's important for us to value that. So I, you know, during my master's, even though I had lots of classes, I worked at a restaurant. I was great. Down Chestnut Street, Capitol Grill. It was perfect. That was a hostess. And I met everyone, all the council people, the mayor, all those people. And I met one that no one thought that would become mayor. He saw how hard I worked. And then I was actually presenting to him my studio on the waterfront plan that when he won, Michael Nutter, he said, I want the planning commission and zoning commission to be the strongest one. And then he saw Mayor Daley in Chicago with his green roof. And so Michael was like, we're going to do that. And then he nominated this, according to Philly people, I was a foreigner. Speaker 2 (17:23) I'm Speaker 1 (17:24) like, I have a home here. I went to school. But so I was on the zoning. I was the vice chair of the zoning commission. So we had to, we do the zoning code. It hadn't been done since Kevin Bacon. That's Kevin Bacon. Ed Bacon, Kevin Bacon's dad. Yeah, yes. A very famous planner that changed the way Philadelphia is designed. So those people gave me the ability. And this is a volunteer job. This is not like they're paying you. And a lot of people were really upset that this woman is the very powerful commissioner out of the blue. And I had just graduated a couple of years before. Speaker 1 (18:12) said, everything has to be green. But it's when you put the horse before the cart, but we didn't have the infrastructure. I said, I'm not going to prove anything that is not up to LEED standards. And the developers were so pissed off. And I had this gentleman come up to me and said, my granddaughter won't get into my Cadillac because of you. And she thinks that I'm killing polar bears. Speaker 1 (18:39) And I was like, well, in 10 years, your granddaughter is going to be able to vote. And that's what really made me be more resilient on that. Because if the children and the young kids are really looking to this and will make a stand of not getting into grandpa's Cadillac, and then he had to go buy a Prius. So that in itself creates an economic shift. And so, you know, that gave me hope of really moving the needle on that. And so that really helped me understand better that I had come from Hungary and I could get we could get three countries to talk to each other. But we couldn't get New Jersey and Pennsylvania to share water data. Yeah, Speaker 2 (19:22) I know. Like, that's crazy, right? So see, this is why I live in the world of logistics, which is. a bunch of irrational people. Right. I always wondered, and like, that was my, you know, if you go back and play the history of all the things that I did, it was always around last mile optimization. The last mile for Coke and Pepsi ended at the store. It's a DSD model, like direct store delivery. The last mile for Walt Disney Company, particularly like, you know, if you strip away all the entertainment business and other things, there's a theme park. So basically Magic Band Experience was connecting the last mile experience back to. So that's my one of my inventions. Speaker 1 (20:10) Yes. And then Speaker 2 (20:12) Walmart was basically unlocking the grocery delivery model. And at that time, what happened was like we were putting Tritem trucks. on the road to actually make grocery deliveries which is a web van model which is not going to work and the company went defunct exactly Speaker 1 (20:26) and Speaker 2 (20:27) we were trying to replicate that whole like silly thing again all over and we were wondering why we were not making money i said it's not going to make money we're going to put like five deliveries send it in the same neighborhood like five times and you think you're going to make money like it's not going to happen like why don't you put it in the trunk of a car they said i was like crazy Speaker 1 (20:42) they Speaker 2 (20:43) literally thought Speaker 2 (20:46) This guy is out of like, you know, some banana republic. And he's going to like sink like Walmart's like stock. But like we persevered and we got it done. Like, you