- Director's Office
Smith is an award-winning entrepreneur, engineer, and tech evangelist. Today Smith is CEO and founder of shift7, a company working collaboratively on systemic social, environmental and economic problems - finding opportunities to scout and scale promising solutions and solution makers and engage proven tech-forward, open, shareable practices to drive direct impact, together. Smith served as the third United States Chief Technology Officer from 2014-2017 helping the President and his teams harness the power of data, innovation and technology on behalf of the nation. Smith recruited top tech talent to serve across government collaborating on pressing issues, from data science, AI and open source, to inclusive economic growth and criminal justice reform. Her teams focused on broad capacity building by co-creating all-hands-on-deck initiatives, including the public-private program TechHire, the Computer Science for All initiative, and the Image of STEM campaigns.
Smith was vice president at Google for eleven years leading new business development where she managed early-stage partnerships, pilot explorations and technology licensing across the global engineering and product teams; she led acquisitions of Google Earth, Maps, and Picasa; led the Google.org transition to increase engineering adding Google Crisis Response, GoogleforNonProfits, Earth Outreach/Engine; and later was a VP in the Google[x] team where she co-created SolveForX and Women Techmakers. Earlier, Smith served as CEO of PlanetOut, worked on early smartphone technologies at General Magic and at Apple Japan. Smith is an advisor to the MIT Media Lab, Vital Voices, Thinkof-Us, LA Olympics 2028, the Malala Fund, which she co-founded. She was selected as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and completed her master’s thesis work at the MIT Media Lab. Smith serves as a life member on the board of MIT and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Academy of Engineering.