Alumni Spotlight: Nik Marda (CDF ‘19)
A Truman Scholar reflects on his journey in tech policy
Last month, I had the opportunity to catch up with one of our 2019 Civic Digital Fellows, Nik Marda, to see what he has been up to since wrapping up as a Product Management Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in August.
Nik is currently a student at Stanford University and was named as one of 62 2020 Truman Scholars, “the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for those pursuing careers as public service leaders.” Our team at Coding it Forward is thrilled to have played a small role in his public service journey and can’t wait to see what he will accomplish next.
The following has been lightly edited for clarity.
Coding it Forward: Reflecting back on your time as a Fellow, if you had to share one piece of advice with an incoming 2020 Fellow, what would it be?
Nik Marda: Invest in the CDF community. It’s an awesome group of like-minded individuals who care deeply about using technology to improve society. That’s what sets CDF apart. Everyone isn’t just brilliant, they’re also passionate, thoughtful, and caring.
CIF: Do you have any examples of what that community meant to you, or maybe one instance where it was obvious to you?
NM: Obviously there are many, from the fireside chats where Fellows shared things they were personally passionate about, to a hackathon we had early in CDF.
At the hackathon, I had an idea I was interested in and I found three other Fellows who were interested in the topic too and together, we not only put together a presentation for that hackathon, but turned it into a policy proposal that was pitched to the National Commission on Service.
Fellows are easily excited about making a positive impact in the world, and it’s very easy to spark that flame and carry it across the finish line.
CIF: What was the biggest lesson you took away from being a Civic Digital Fellow?
NM: The Fellowship was confirmation that there is a lot of important work happening at the intersection of technology and government. I always had that hunch, but it’s one thing to read about it in the classroom or on blogs and newspapers, but it’s another thing to see it in person, and that was quite meaningful.
Now I’m confident that I want to work in space. I know that the problems are important and meaningful, and I hope to help tackle some of them in the future.
CIF: You’ve recently shifted more towards tech policy. Can you share a little bit about what you’ve done since your summer at NIH?
NM: It’s been quite busy (laughs). The big highlights in the last few months are that I interned for Senator Amy Klobuchar, I’m working with the Tech Talent Project right now, and I started a master’s in computer science.
And then this summer, I’ll be interning with the National Security Commission on AI, an opportunity that was facilitated by the Fellowship.
CIF: That’s fantastic. In some of those roles, what has been the exciting thing for you about policy instead of building technology? What about policy has piqued your interest?
NM: I credit CDF a lot with this change. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use my technical skills to help build tech for the government, or to help the government think about tech and how to regulate it.
It was through conversations with other Fellows and professionals last summer I realized that thinking about ways technology should and shouldn’t be used in society were questions that I found most fascinating. And it was in CDF — when I met folks like TechCongress fellows and technologists at the FTC — that I was able to confirm that technical skills can be immensely valuable in policymaking.
I also felt that when I was interning for Senator Klobuchar, there was a certain unique value-add I could provide with my tech skills and education, especially when a lot of other interns lacked that background. And it’s definitely a unique and valuable skill set when it comes to tech policy.
CIF: In conversations with other tech and CS classmates, in sharing your experiences, how have those conversations gone? Have you seen a ground shift in attitudes or is social impact something that not a lot of folks are aware of?
NM: I think there is a growing sentiment that, at least at Stanford and in Silicon Valley, that we need to be a little more thoughtful about what we build, who we build it for, and how failing to do so can be problematic. I know on campus, we have had a few more initiatives around public interest technology and that’s great to see, but I don’t think that the ideas and the importance have really caught on to the extent that I would have hoped.
I try to do my part. I try to share what I’m thinking about what the role of tech should be in society, and specifically how governments can think about it correctly, but I still feel like the majority of the people I interact with who have technical skills are more interested in bringing those technical skills to big tech companies. That’s not necessarily bad, but I hope to encourage people to make that decision thoughtfully, with the knowledge of other places where their skill set might be more impactful.
I do think that a lot of people want to use their technical skills for good but aren’t sure how to, and that’s why we need to start having these conversations about what does “tech for good” actually mean, and what are the right frameworks to use to think about those things. That was a large part of the inspiration behind the op-ed I wrote recently.
CIF: You’ve made tech for good so much of a throughline for all that you’ve been doing, both in school and professionally. What do you hope to be doing in 5 years?
NM: I’m not sure yet, but one path that I’ve been thinking about is helping to develop AI policy on Capitol Hill or at a federal agency. I’m also thinking about further graduate school in either law or information studies.
CIF: Is there anything else you’d like to say to other students who are grappling with or thinking about tech for good?
NM: Communities like this — communities like CDF — give you an opportunity to be thoughtful about what you’re building and, if you’re fortunate to be part of such a community, you should really take advantage of it.
For me, this was really the first community of civic technologists that I’ve been a part of, and to have this community of people who share similar values really gave me an opportunity to think deeply about what I want to use my technical skills to do and what kind of impact I’d like to have. I think you’d be remiss if you didn’t take advantage of that opportunity.
CIF: You definitely did, in more ways than one.
Nik Marda is a junior at Stanford University, where is pursuing a master’s in computer science and a bachelor’s in political science. He was a 2019 Civic Digital Fellow at the National Institutes of Health.
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