S&P Global – New York City
Thursday, May 3, 2018 | 5pm-7pm

With the support of the Hewlett Foundation and S&P Global, the National Security Institute hosted “Decompiling the Government: Getting Technologists and Policymakers to Speak the Same Language.”

This event featured remarks by NSI Advisory Board member Lisa Monaco, former Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, as well as current Distinguished Senior Fellow at New York University Law School and Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

The “Decompiling the Government” event series begins to bring together technologists and leading policymakers, lawyers, and journalists to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical cyber professionals. 

The way cyber policy is made today—both in Washington, DC and at the state level—is fundamentally broken. Too often the government acts without the benefit of real technical insight, and as a result, often without due regard for the long-term effects on innovation and real-world security. Given that policymakers generally have only a glancing familiarity with technology development, ensuring that they have access to technologists with real, deep expertise is critical.

To that end, we gathered technologists, including computer scientists, programmers, data scientists, and engineers, who were interested in learning more about the intersection between policy and technology. While most of the event was reserved for networking, the national security-interested technologists started the process of not only learning how to engage with policymakers, but also better acquainting themselves with like-minded tech colleagues.