About Us
Brendan, Emily, and Ben make up the Anchorage Innovation Team, i-team for short.
We come from various backgrounds, but share a love of hacking away on tough city problems. Launching in 2017, the Anchorage i-team is focusing on community problems related to economic opportunities, cost of living, and access to services in the Mountain View, Muldoon, and Spenard neighborhoods. We are part of a network of 24 Innovation Teams around the world funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
We’re excited to do great work in Anchorage. Thanks so much for checking us out!
Brendan Babb
Chief Innovation Officer
Brendan is a creative problem solver focusing on improving government through civic tech, open data and innovation. Brendan is the co-captain of Code for Anchorage, where he originally started collaborating with the Muni of Anchorage 5 years ago on civic tech projects, which led to him becoming the first Chief Innovation Officer for Anchorage. He has a background in mathematics and programming and has worked as a software developer for many Anchorage companies. He has specialized in optimizing processes which has led to 4 computer chip patents and a recently filed 5th patent based on research at University of Alaska, Anchorage on Mars Rover image compression. He has acted and directed local theater and enjoys soccer and DJing.
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Emily Bokar
Innovation Strategist
Emily is a former White House political appointee and longtime staff member of President Barack Obama who’s passionate about connecting and empowering everyday people to change their world. She organized millions of grassroots supporters as a founding member of President Obama’s groundbreaking digital team, and collaboratively led digital strategy across nine bureaus and 70,000 employees as digital director of the U.S. Department of the Interior, growing social media engagement rates to the highest in government. She consults on how to drive change and innovation through belonging, and is overjoyed to be back home in Alaska, the place she loves most in the world.
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Ben Matheson
Data Analyst
Ben uses quantitative data to solve problems and develop solutions with partners. He specializes in finding meaningful patterns and visualizing data. He spent his early career working as a reporter for public radio stations across bush Alaska.
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