TheBridge profile: Dhanaraj Thakur
Name: Dhanaraj Thakur
Current city: Washington, DC
Current job: Research Director, Center for Democracy and Technology
Past job: Research Director, World Wide Web Foundation
Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? Kramerbooks.
Q. Describe how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your current job. Building a team from scratch and ensuring that it is effectively integrated into the organization's existing operations.
Q. Job advice in three words? Pause and reflect.
Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between innovation and regulation? We are developing and publishing evidence to inform our work on free expression online, surveillance, privacy, and other key tech issues. Based on our research we are also putting forward recommendations to policy-makers, companies, and regulators on how to protect and improve people's rights online.
Q. What can innovators learn from policymakers? That we have to be clear about the problem being addressed, and the use-case for a given tech solution.
Q. What can policymakers learn from innovators? Testing, testing, testing. I.e., we need to invest more in testing and evaluating a given policy solution, and be willing to modify policies based on results.
Q. Favorite book/podcast/long-form article you recommend? Weapons of Math Destruction. - Cathy O'Neil
Q. Everyday is probably different, but can you describe a "day in the life" of your job? Checking in with project managers on their progress and providing feedback to each other; external meetings with current and potential partners, consultations with policy leads on designing new projects; also possibly external preseatnations or media interviews.
Q. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself in the beginning of your career? Ask people for advice or seek out a mentor - don't assume you know a lot because you don't.
Q. If you had to live in another city, which would it be? NYC.
Q. Morning routine? Breakfast and some light exercise.
Q. Startup to watch? Snowflake.
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