Marking the Moment: Coding It Forward’s Leadership Transition

By Jessica Cole, Board Chair at Coding It Forward

Earlier today, Coding It Forward announced a milestone: this spring, Deputy Director Ariana Soto will be taking the mantle as the organization’s Executive Director and CEO, succeeding co-founder and current Executive Director and CEO Rachel Dodell. This transition comes as Coding It Forward hits a record of more than 600 Fellows placed in public service since its founding in 2017.

On behalf of the board, I want to take a moment to celebrate Rachel and Ariana, the Coding It Forward partners and team members who have gotten us here, and the work of the organization itself heading into its next chapter. I also want to encourage you to join Coding It Forward’s mission by applying for the team’s open roles in Program Management and Government Partnerships and by signing up to stay informed about upcoming recruitments for Fellows and government partners.

Coding It Forward makes me excited for our future.

Founded in 2017 by a group of, at the time, all-volunteer students, Coding It Forward has grown to be America’s leading summer internship provider for early-career technologists committed to public service. 50% of Coding It Forward alumni now work full-time in government or social impact organizations, making this organization the steward of our public service pipeline and the first place that governments can go to ensure that their next generation of public servants represents the communities they serve. Coding It Forward Fellows have come from 117 schools; served in 60 host offices nationwide, including 14 federal agencies, 5 states, 3 counties, and 16 cities; and had ripple effects ranging from completing the first equity analysis of the City of Los Angeles’ procurement process in 20 years to introducing new automation techniques that saved the U.S. Census Bureau an estimated $2 million in survey processing costs.

Moreover, Coding It Forward is one of those rare organizations whose impact compounds year over year because it reaches people at a moment of inflection — people who create something impactful during their Fellowship but then who go on to do that over and over again in other places and who adjust their paths permanently after the Fellowship ends.

We cannot tell the story of Coding It Forward without telling the story of Rachel and Ariana’s involvement to date. We are tremendously lucky as an organization to have two such talented leaders on the team, with the opportunity to transition seamlessly between them.

After serving in the inaugural cohort of Fellows at the U.S. Census Bureau, Rachel became Coding It Forward’s first (and only) full-time employee from her graduation in 2018 until the staff grew in 2020. She has dedicated the past 7 years to building Coding It Forward in ways large and small, and as such, her impact on the organization is nearly impossible to quantify. During her tenure, Coding It Forward grew from its dorm room roots into an established, national public interest tech organization. We are so very grateful to her for her tireless contributions, thoughtful leadership, and for all that she has done to set the organization up for stability and scale. We cannot wait to witness her next chapter.

Speaking of next chapters, Coding It Forward’s future is exceedingly bright under the leadership of incoming CEO Ariana.

Ariana, too, has been a part of Coding It Forward’s founding team from her student days, beginning her work with Coding It Forward years ago while still a sophomore in college. As Deputy Director, Ariana has been a fierce and eloquent champion for the mission, a source of empathy and expertise as the primary face of Coding It Forward to government partners on the ground, and a key driver of Coding It Forward’s expansion into an offering for state and local governments in addition to federal. It is hard to leave a conversation with Ariana not feeling inspired into action. We are all so excited for her tenure.

A great portion of Coding It Forward’s magic, of course, comes from the community around it. Rachel and Ariana build upon a foundation laid by original cofounders and team members like Chris Kuang, Athena Kan, and Neel Mehta who have gone on to start other meaningful tech organizations; by their teammate, Program Manager and Fellowship alum Yuyang Zhong; by hundreds of civic tech leaders who volunteer as mentors or speakers during cohorts; and by alums, applicants, government partners, and supporters who make the Fellowship possible. Thank you all for all that you do to make our next generation of government services work for all and to make our next generation of public interest technologists reflect the best of the nation.

At the opening of this blog post, I mentioned a statistic: 600 Fellows placed in government since Coding It Forward began.

But there’s a number that sticks in my head more than that one: over 4,500 candidates (a record number) applied for Coding It Forward’s programs this year. That means there are still thousands of young people who want to serve — who want to serve in every jurisdiction across the country, who have technical skills that exactly match the ones we need in our civil service — who do not yet have a path in. And that number is exactly the reason for Coding It Forward’s continued importance as it partners with creative public servants in cities, states, and federal agencies across the country to create new pathways into public agencies and to figure out how to make this a well-trodden path for all.

Please join me and the board in thanking Rachel, congratulating Ariana, and supporting Coding It Forward’s work and mission in the days, months, and exciting years to come.