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

Natalia Olson (0:00)

I can create a party made of political agents that can use your job ten times better.

Shekhar Natarajan (0:11)

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

Natalia Olson (0:21)

I don't think that you can run the government as a business. We have an example right now of that doesn't work.

Shekhar Natarajan (0:34)

It feels like the world has gotten even more polarized and more fragmented. Do you think they can ever glue them back together?

Natalia Olson (0:47)

I brought in folks from the blockchain community, the Department of Justice started using it.

Shekhar Natarajan (1:19)

Welcome to yet another episode of Tomorrow, Today with Shekhar Natarajan. This is our 50th episode. Natalia Olson, she's a celebrity.

What makes this very, very special is she used to be Obama's innovation advisor, and also managing very complex governmental policies and initiatives. Amazing person. And as I'm getting to know her, it's been really refreshing to hear some of the thoughts. I want to understand the whole shift of open data and other things that you guys were so instrumental in building and kind of unpack your journey, your personal life along with the professional career and what you're doing now, and want to spend the rest of two hours doing that.

Natalia Olson (2:18)

That's a fun way to get into the conversation. Yeah.

Shekhar Natarajan (2:25)

So, you're a Latina.

Natalia Olson (2:27)

Yeah.

Shekhar Natarajan (2:28)

And basically, you grew up in the United States.

Natalia Olson (2:32)

Around the world.

Shekhar Natarajan (2:33)

Yes, around the world. And you were sharing a little bit of what the family, and that your dad was building embassies around the world. So, tell me, it looks like government, and representation of government is like in your blood.

So, how did your early formative years create who you are as a person?

Natalia Olson (3:03)

Well, I think what's important is the values of your family. And I always talk about my parents, because my mom's a hundred American, my father is Norwegian American.

And, you know, only in the US you can have such a diverse group 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 do not 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.

Shekhar Natarajan (4:29)

This was part of your life.

Natalia Olson (4:30)

Yeah. Yeah. This is really important. And both of my parents are just very giving and taught us good things.

And special.

Shekhar Natarajan (4:41)

How did your father meet your mom?

Natalia Olson (4:43)

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.

Shekhar Natarajan (5:03)

Shocked the parents.

Natalia Olson (5:08)

So yeah. And then we went back to the US. We actually, you know, my dad has his own little company. The government, this was interesting. After the two bombings in Africa, our two US embassies there, the US 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, you know, build these embassies across Latin America. I grew up in Latam in many countries, you know, from Kingston, Jamaica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras.

And so 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 have to make every three years, you have to make new friends, you have to understand the city, understand the different cultures, because I tell people at Venezuela and Mexico, very different. They always speak Spanish, but very different histories, different ways of doing things.