TheBridge profile: Vannary Kong
Name: Vannary Kong
Current city: Washington, DC
Current job: Senior Business Development Representative at Granicus & Founder, President of the US-ASEAN Youth Council
Past job: Business Development Representative at Granicus
Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? It is a tie between Peets Coffee and Blue Bottle Coffee.
Q. Describe how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your current job. A skill that I learned from my previous job is the art of negotiation. Negotiations play such an important role when it comes to the impact we are making with the implication of technology and how it makes an impact for the greater good.
Q. Job advice in three words? Know your worth.
Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between innovation and regulation? Granicus provides the first unified Civic Engagement Platform for government - bringing together website management, digital communications, 311 service requests, online transactions, and meeting transparency. We are contributing to the open government with technology by expanding the government's public engagement with hard to reach citizens and making technology more inclusive.
Q. What can innovators learn from policymakers? Technical change is advancing at a breakneck speed while institutions govern innovative activity move forward trying to keep pace. Innovators can learn about being more flexible with policymakers that the role responsible for government innovation appreciates the power of the free markets in establishing innovation. There is also an understanding of social expectation is self-realization, in regards to the social cost that the markets have yet to internalize.
Q. What can policymakers learn from innovators? Policymakers can learn that incorporating values and motivations to influence decisions that go beyond the role of policy proposals motives, could help policymakers take on a long-view of those creative, out of the box thinking, and better communication and implication of greater impact in terms everyone can understand while reducing the social cost of negative externalities.
Q. Favorite book/podcast/long-form article you recommend? The Hacker and the State.
Q. Everyday is probably different, but can you describe a "day in the life" of your job? Keeping pace with technological advances in our ever-changing world. Many of our clients are working in cybersecurity, identity management, open source and other software-related fields. Along with our senior team, I’ve spoken with prospects in a variety of new and interesting fields. I am always fascinated with the solutions these organizations have developed!
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