Cynthia Lo, Program Manager for Social Impact, GitHub

1. How do you use technology/policy to improve citizens’ lives? Tell us about your role or organisation. 

At GitHub I lead the skills-based volunteering program and digital public goods engagement where I connect software developers to open source for good organisations.

We work on projects such as building an open source metrics dashboard for the World Health Organisation, or building a self-service process to make AI/ML medical research models publicly available to help researchers run them for free with Ersilia.

This is done by leveraging technology on the GitHub platform where developers from civil society, public and social sector organisations can create, store, and share their software and data.

In addition, I work on capacity building for developers globally to learn about how to engage in software development in the public sector and the social sector through hands-on workshops, and matching the developers to work on community management for public projects.

This has encouraged more civic tech development where citizens can connect with developers globally to work on social impact.

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2. What was the most impactful project you worked on this year? 

This year has been an exciting year! We launched GitHub for Nonprofits, a way for public sector and social sector organisations to find and connect with software developer volunteers, and to have better access to tools that can create technology for the public.

Nonprofit organisations that build technology in support of the public can now have easier access to software development tools they need through the GitHub for Nonprofits platform.

This platform grew from in depth research in the cross-section of nonprofits that build tech in order to better understand their challenges.

Nonprofit and social sector organisations can also post their open source software and design development projects and be matched with volunteers to contribute on impactful projects and join a community through For Good First Issue.

Volunteering is a passion of mine and I am always looking for ways to support nonprofits.

3. What was one unexpected learning from 2024? 

2024 was a year filled with many lessons learned.

Personally, a key learning came from seeing the impact of mentorship. Having a mentor led to better ways of identifying skill gaps and provided actionable feedback that has accelerated learning and growth.

Learning how impactful mentorship has inspired me to also provide mentorship for early career professionals and see their career develop.

4. What’s a tool or technique you’re excited to explore in 2025? 

For 2025, I am excited to launch more in person engagements such as workshops with local grassroots organisations and nonprofits where we can bring together software developers to tackle.

There are now more tools to bring together hybrid and in person engagement for skills development and civic engagement.

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5. Everybody’s talking about AI today – give us your hot take on AI and what it means for the public sector.

There are many opportunities for leveraging AI in the public sector.

With more open Digital Public Goods projects that focus on AI models, we may be able to see more community involvement and civic engagement on AI projects for social good.

There could be more opportunity for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

6. What are your priorities for 2025? 

2025 will be a busy year! We are looking forward to deepening partnerships with more government and public sector entities.

I’m hoping to work together on social impact challenges and provide more access to tools needed to create more tech for good.

7. What advice do you have for public sector innovators? 

Engage in digital public goods! There could be open source projects public sector innovators have been developing that would qualify as a digital public good (DPG).

Digital public goods are open source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, or open content that adhere to the DPG Standard and Sustainable Development Goals.

DPGs range from public health information systems to data gathering mapping tools used by governments and large nonprofit organisations.

DPGs may help protect countries from vendor lock-in, facilitate local capacity building, and break down innovation silos by facilitating connection and reuse of existing systems.

To find a DPG that matches your interest, you can visit the For Good First Issue site.

8. Who inspires you today? 

The community of open source developers especially in digital public goods inspire me.

Seeing the hard work and resilience of contributors working on civic tech, nonprofit tech and coming together to support each other inspires me to work on building better programs for this community.

This feature was made possible in partnership with the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA).